DAWN | Mohammad Yaqoob
LAHORE, April 26: The Pakistan Olympic Association (POA) has launched an informative website, claiming that the portal will be updated on daily basis to facilitate visitors.
The website will be linked to all important sports portals containing news about international events besides having linkages of regional sports bodies.
On the occasion of launching the website, POA president Gen (retd) Arif Hasan accompanied by POA secretary Khalid Mahmood and vice-president Shaukat Javed informed the media that the site would provide a lot of information timely and would be further improved with the passage of time.
The website — www.nocpakistan.org — contains all information about Pakistan’s gold, silver and bronze medallists, who participated in different prominent international sports competitions like Olympics, Asian Games, Commonwealth Games, Beach Games and the SAF Games, besides brief introduction about players.
Some video clips, highlighting different beautiful areas of the country, are also available on the website.
The POA president said work was under way to update information about the Hall of Fame, adding that calendar of the POA and a brief introduction of all national sports federations with their constitutions were also on the site.
He said the POA has also contacted sports goods manufacturers of Sialkot to display their ads.
Shaukat Javed, who is also Pakistan Federation Baseball (PFB) president, played a leading role in establishing the website, the POA president said.Admitting that the decision to set up the website should have been taken way back, he said that instead of focusing on mistakes committed in the past, everyone should now think about the future.
Commenting on the Inter-provincial Games which were to be held last year, he claimed that the POA executive body has decided that the games would now be organised in June this year in Quetta, adding that the National Games will be organised by the Punjab Olympic Association in Lahore in October this year.
On the occasion, Pakhtunkhwa Olympic Association president Syed Aqil Shah announced that his organisation was ready to hold the first-ever Youth Games in the province next year.
He came hard on working of the Pakistan Sports Board (PSB), especially after passage of the 18th Amendment under which all sports affairs were transferred to provinces.
Aqil said that confusion persists with regard to the functioning of the PSB, since currently two director generals are working.
A delegation of the POA led by its president would meet President Zardari to apprise him about problems being faced in the promotion of sports in the country, he remarked.
Moreover, the POA president said that at the moment it was not possible to hold separate women games, since women are participating in the national games along with men, adding that the first Beach Games would be held in Karachi next year.
Answering a question about parallel bodies in different sports federations like badminton, cycling and basketball, he said all such disputes would be resolved soon.
Source: http://www.dawn.com/