August 07, 2008

Sportswomen Sadaf Siddiqui and Kiran Khan, the only two women representing Pakistan in Beijing, speak about their aims and aspirations

Like last year, only two girls are representing Pakistan in the Olympics this year as well. The 22-year-old sprinter Sadaf Siddiqui, a Pakistan Steel employee, who got a wildcard entry, will be competing in the 100 metres, while 18-year-old swimmer Kiran Khan, an A-Levels student, also there on a wildcard, is going to take part in the 50-metres freestyle event.

It is a proud moment for both the girls to be awarded an opportunity to compete with world-class athletes at the Olympic Games, although they know that no one expects much from them. They are just helping Pakistan fulfil an International Olympic Committee (IOC) obligation of sending at least one female athlete to the Games. Wildcards are also awarded by the IOC to member countries in order for them to be able to send someone, even if no one qualified.

A wildcard also comes with its own set of rules. There is one for a male athlete and one for a female and, unlike qualifying and competing in the same sport or category again and again, the same person is not eligible for another wildcard the next time. Our girls’ squad has not exceeded beyond two members since they started competing in the Olympics in 1996. According to Khalid Khan, secretary-general of Pakistan Olympic Association (POA), “There are only two or three disciplines in which a wildcard is offered, and athletics and swimming are two of them.”

Sadaf Siddiqui, who lines up for the 100m heats at Beijing on August 16 at 10.30pm local time, is looking to break her predecessor Shabana Akhtar’s 100m time at the Games. “I already recorded a faster time of 24.36 (24 seconds and 36 micro seconds) than Shabana’s in 200m at the 40th National Championship in Lahore this year in April,” she says. “The record was broken after 17 years,” she further added. “This was also when I won the 100m while reaching the Olympic standard of 11.81,” she said.

Talking about her earlier accomplishments, Sadaf said: “I started competing professionally around the end of 2003 when I recorded good time at the SAF Games trials. At the games in 2004, I came fifth in the 400m flat race. The following year, I started competing in 100 and 200m events. I ran the 200m at the Women Islamic Games in Tehran, the Indo-Pak Games in Patiala and was also declared Pakistan champion in 200m by the end of 2005.”

Becoming faster with time, Sadaf came back home from the 10th SAF games at Colombo in 2006 with two bronze medals – one in 100m and the other in relay. She also participated in the 2007 Asian Championship in Jordan but is not happy about her performance there. The end of 2007 saw her competing in the SAF Athletics in Cochin, India, where competing in the 200 and 100m category, she achieved the Olympic standard once again.

Even though Sadaf is glad to be going to the Olympics, she wishes she had qualified to compete there rather than go on a wildcard. “I know I had it in me to qualify. I would have too had I been allowed time to prepare myself for the qualifiers. I was fit for the ones to be held in Egypt earlier but then those got postponed. Later the venue was changed to Jordan and we were not informed about the new date of the event, leaving us with very little time to get back into practice,” she said.

“For the Cochin qualifiers,” she continued, “We had to travel by train for two days, after which there was a day-long drive by car in order to reach the venue. We were naturally exhausted which reflected in our performance.”

And this time too Sadaf was only informed that she would be competing in the Olympics back in June, giving her hardly any time to prepare for the big event. Still, the athlete, who also cleared her dope test in June along with Kiran Khan, the swimmer, is keeping her spirits high. “I know not much is expected of me but winning is not everything, it is taking part in the competition, which really matters,” she concluded.

Meanwhile, Kiran Khan, who four years ago, lost out to Rubab Raza, who proving herself slightly better on the international swimming circuit, was given the wildcard to compete at the Athens Olympics in 2004, has got it this time.

“I’ve been swimming for 14 years now and became professional in 1997. Earlier, I was competing in my age group but my first big competition came in the form of the 28th National Games in 2001 where at the age of 11, I swam with much older girls,” she said.

That was also the year when she took part in the 3rd Women’s Islamic Games in Iran. “I bagged two gold, six silver and four bronze medals there,” she says, still delighted with her accomplishment at such a young age.

Kiran who is Pakistan’s number one swimmer now, has competed in several international swimming events since then. “I won the first South Asian medal in women’s swimming for Pakistan. I am the only girl in Pakistan’s history to have won a gold medal in 50m butterfly while creating a new SAF record of 30.56 during the 2007 South Asian Swimming Championship in 2007. I also came 17th in Melbourne last year,” she informs.

Kiran is ecstatic about being given a chance to compete in the Olympics. “So what if I am going on a wildcard? It is a facility for people like us who can’t really qualify with the kind of facilities extended to us here,” she says.

But about achieving something at Beijing, Kiran says: “I am a realist. I trained like crazy for the world championship but it is still not the same as those training for four years and that too with international world-class coaches. That kind of training is too expensive for me to manage on my own. Then too, I was also only informed that I was going to Beijing two months ago,” she points out while adding, “I’ll consider myself lucky if I break my own record at the Olympics.” Coming from a family of swimmers, Kiran gets a lot of encouragement and support from her father and coach Khalid Zaman Khan, himself a former Pakistan No 1 and winner of the World Masters, who also happens to be a FINA-qualified coach. Kiran’s brothers Sikander and Shahbaz too are expert swimmers and everyone at home will be backing her 100 per cent when she dives with other world-class swimmers in the 50m freestyle on August 14, Pakistan’s Independence Day. — S.H.