Inquiry committee to look into Olympics hockey debacle
From Ehsan Qureshi
BEIJING, Aug 22 (APP): A high-powered committee is being constituted to look into the reasons for Pakistan hockey team’s worst-ever eighth spot in history of Olympics, it was reliably learnt here on Friday.
Three-time former Olympic Champion Pakistan, which finished at low sixth under Rehan Butt at Athens in 2006 went further two places down four years later in Beijing.
The committee may consist of former Olympians Hasan Sardar, Shahbaz Ahmed Senior and couple of other top hockey players besides a few members of the parliament to look into the reasons and causes of Zeeshan Ashraf’s Pakistan team finishing a disappointing low in 12- team competition.
Pakistan team could win only two matches against lowly rated Canada and South Africa and thus also failed to win cash incentives of $500 announced by PHF after losing to Great Britain, Australia, the Netherlands and finally to New Zealand.
The inquiry committee would be interviewing all involved in preparations of the team for Olympic and go into the root causes of such a poor performance in Beijing Olympics.
Separate committees will also be reviewing the performance of wild-card entries in athletics, swimming and shooting in Beijing Olympic Games.
Pakistan Olympic Association (POA) is also likely to face the wrath of parliamentarians for sending a large number of officials with the sports contingent.
In the meantime President PHF Mir Zafarullah Khan Jamali and Secretary Asif Bajwa and Chief-selector Islahuddin Siddiqui left here on Friday for Islamabad, after watching hockey matches in the games.
The departure of the officials was delayed for over four hours due to late arrival of PIA flight from Islamabad.