KARACHI: Records were shattered and new legacies forged as the 29th Palmolive Sindh Women’s Swimming Championship came to a close on Sunday, with 14-year-old Hareem Malik, the star of the show, expressing her desire to win laurels for Pakistan in the future.

Pakistan has failed to make a splash in the pool in international events but Hareem, who alongside Meher Maqbool represented Pakistan at the Commonwealth Youth Games in August this year, is hopeful about the times to come.

Hareem led Karachi Grammar School’s charge at the event, bagging six gold medals, breaking six records and claiming Group Champion in both the Under-14 and Open Age group categories.

“I want to represent Pakistan once again and hopefully win a medal too,” she told Dawn.

KGS finished with a whopping 448 points overall, followed by Bayview Academy with 278 points and the CAS school with 152 points.

Meher of Bayview, also 14, set the tone for the two-day championship, winning the opening race of 800m freestyle Open Age and obliterating the longstanding record by more than 30 seconds.

She cruised to victory in the rest of her races too, winning six gold medals overall and setting three new records in the Under-14 category.

“This sport has grown on me, and I have a lot of friends which feel like family,” she told Dawn.

The talents of Hareem and Meher have been harnessed thanks to the intense yet nurturing training of coaches like Adnan Ismail and Zameer-ul-Hasan.

Ismail coaches Meher and some 50 other female students, alongside an equal number of young boys. Now in his eighteenth year of coaching, he himself swam at a national level.

Hareem has been coached to excellence by Zameer, who has 20 odd years of coaching experience under his belt.

A national gold medalist and international bronze medalist in swimming, Zameer now coaches swimmers who fall in the same ranks as him.

“[Hareem] is an incredibly hardworking and disciplined swimmer, and I have no doubt she’ll do the country proud in future swimming championships,” he said, adding that it’s his dream to have one of his swimmers reach the Olympics one day.

TOUGH SWIM

But qualifying for the Olympics, and winning is a tough swim. Women’s swimming was only started by the Karachi Women’s Swimming Association (KWSA) in the early 1990s.

“We did it because girls wanted to swim competitively just as the boys did,” said Veena Masud, a senior technical official at the Sindh Open who also serves as the associate secretary of the Pakistan Olympic Federation, among other distinguished titles in sports.

“Unfortunately, swimming has seen a decline in the country in recent years owing to a lack of facilities,” she told Dawn.

“When you elect a government into power, they’re supposed to provide you with [sporting] facilities and extend their support, but sadly that’s not happening in swimming and many other sports,” Masud said.

But former swimmers are working to bring technical nous into the sport in Pakistan. Aelia Mehdi has forged her way forward in the sport, practicing dentistry by day and coaching women by night. She recently completed a coaching course facilitated by American coach Jay Benner in Pakistan.

“He fused science and sports together and I appreciate that kind of innovative approach to the sport,” said Aelia, who also served as a technical official this weekend.

She and three other former swimmers competed against current swimmers in a friendly relay race, closing out the championship with a mix of the old guard and the new.

INCLUSIVE APPROACH

But the most incredible performance of the weekend came from six extraordinary athletes, all of whom have overcome hurdles both inside and outside the pool.

The Inclusive Race for children with special needs saw a nail-biting finish, with Amna Zia and Farah Vohra tying for gold. The swimmers were met with loud applause from the audience throughout the race, with many mothers of younger swimmers taking the opportunity to explain the importance of inclusivity in sports and beyond.

“These kids deserve everything that other kids have,” Amna’s mother Nosheen told Dawn. She credited the 16-year-old’s school CAS with providing outstanding educational and athletic facilities for Amna, who represented Pakistan at the 2023 Special Olympics in Berlin earlier this year.

Like Amna, Sara Akbar has Down’s Syndrome and is already a budding athlete, who only began training with Special Olympics Pakistan (SOP) this August onwards.

“There isn’t much awareness of children with special needs, which is why so many families keep their children away from public life if they’re differently abled,” Sara’s mother Sadia said.

Group Champions:

• Under-8: Ranya Chapal, (BVA)
• Under-10: Zoya Omair Hafeez (CAS)
• Under-12: Maria Fawaz Allahwala (KGS)
• Under-14: Hareem Malik (KGS)
• Under-16: Haya Adnan (KGS), Sarah Tabani (BVA), Saba Amin (KAS)
• Open age: Hareem Malik (KGS)

Published in Dawn, November 13th, 2023