ISLAMABAD, Feb 15: The Pakistan Sports Board will launch the most outstanding ‘Sportsman of the Year’ award for players representing Pakistan at international events from the forty affiliated sports federations.

This will be the top award at the national level and will be given to the best player.

“We will award the top honour, ‘the sportsman of the year’, to an athlete male or female who will raise the prestige of the country at the Olympics and other such international events and mark their names in the record books of sports,” the director general PSB, Syed Amir Hamza Gilani told Dawn on Sunday.

The PSB, he said, would also give cash award of Rs1 million to the best selected athlete. When asked about the modalities of selecting ‘the Sportsman of the year’ athlete, he pointed out: “It will be decided soon by the sports board in consultation with sports ministry.

We will award it to one selected athlete on the basis of sheer merit, performance and also for becoming an inspiration for the nation.

What we need right now is developing a positive image of the country abroad. It is a fact that sportsmen are the ambassadors of a nation and we all know that they (players) can do it.”

Amir, a former international athlete of Shot Put, added that despite the ongoing financial crunch, the PSB would extend all its financial and technical support to the national players and federations looking for clinching a medal in Olympics, Commonwealth Games and the Asian Games.

“Currently our target is London – 2012 Olympics, and the PSB is engineering a strategy to win few medals in the mega games”.

When reminded that Pakistan had recently fared at the Beijing Olympics and failed to reach the podium in hockey, swimming and athletics he asserted: “Let’s eye the future, we should learn from the mistakes of the past” adding “the way forward is sincerity and devotion with the game development in the country.”