POA committee visits 34th National Games venues

By our correspondent
KARACHI: The venue committee of the Pakistan Olympic Association (POA) on Thursday visited Quetta and inspected the facilities where Balochistan is set to conduct the 34th National Games from May 15 to 23.
The committee, headed by the POA senior official Mohammad Jehangir, visited different venues and showed its satisfaction over the facilities.
“Major work has been completed on venues and we have told the organisers to also complete the remaining work until March 31. They assured us that everything will be ready by then,” Jehangir told this correspondent.
“Yes we are satisfied. Balochistan has done a great job and have prepared some fine facilities for various games including hockey, athletics, football, volleyball, boxing and other sports. They have also made shooting ranges and the 10 metre range has already been made operational while the 30m range will be made operational when they will get equipment for it. So its fine,” Jehangir said.
“New athletics tartan-track has been laid down and there are two hockey turfs. They have raised fine facilities at the university which has a few big halls. I think the major work has been completed and I am confident if they focuss so the rest of the work will also be completed in the stipulated time,” said Jehangir, who is also the chairman of Pakistan Karate Federation (PKF).
“We had their secretary sports and DG Sports also accompanying us. They now need equipment and for that a summary has been moved to the chief minister,” Jehangir said.
Jehangir said that there are no rowing and sailing facilities in Quetta and the competitions in these events will be held elsewhere in the country.
“They also don’t have swimming facilities as their swimming pool is not of internatioal standard,” Jehangir said.
Army’s Major Irfan, Sindh Olympic Association (SOA) secretary Ahmed Ali Rajput and WAPDA’s secretaery Umair Malik were the other members of the venue committee who were accompanying Jehangir.
Balochistan had been allotted National Games in 2012, the year in which Lahore hosted the biennial spectacle.
However due to security and other issues Balochistan could not go for hosting the 33rd National Games which were then shifted to Khyber Pakhtunkhwa which organised in a befitting way in 2019, days before the South Asian Games in Nepal.