Anum Banday: A Young hope.

BY: Hameem Hussain

Anum Banday

Before you read let me warn you : sports and I are not close friends. However Olympic Games are such a big event and just a euro tunnel away from Paris that i just can't ignore them. Obviously I've seen the opening ceremony, which should have taken place at Paris, realising perhaps alone the Beijing one was better and Seoul one best. As everyone, i searched for my country team, even if I've two countries to fill my heart, i was struck by absence of originality. I looked for more than banner colored shalwar kameez. It's not like i don't like it but, to me some of Pakistani tradition are unknown by most of earth's population: keylash dresses, kashmiri or balouchi dresses... and it's disappointing to see that Pakistan didn't catch the occasion.

My curiosity lead me check  Pakistani Olympic team's profiles. Grand was my surprise in front of Anum Banday's profile : 15 y.o. 400m individual medley. In addition she was a girl ! Giant was my surprise listening an interview of 13 y-o. African swimmer! Do they practice sports since toddler or something like that ? Less unusual but still remarkable another Pakistani young lady, a twenty-year-old athlete :Rabia ASHIQ. And a 17 years old hockey player: Muhammad Tousiq.I vaguely knew sports performance were at there boom in the young years but how young i discovered on London 2012 Pakistan's page. 

Google tells us that she trains at Barnet Copthall Swimming Club, London. She is the third female to be given a wild card while her participation in the 14th FINA World Championships, Shanghai, China. A wild card is a kind of invitation for countries without facilities even if participants don't satisfy reaching the competition criteria. She broke the national record there and clocked : 05:37:11.

At Olympics she came out 4/4 and timed. 05:34,64. Since she didn't get any medal, she has been qualified of failure, kicked out. Last in her heat. Not even taking in consideration that she again broke the national record.. They accuse her of training in London but not winning.

However, there are some people who understand it well

here is an interesting article on the topic 

In my opinion , I don't care that Miss Banday rather practices in London or anywhere else but i admire the courage to give her life a sens and stand up for her country by origin. And i admire all those young athletes who use there talents at there best, plenty of hope.

PS :Just like i told u sports and me equal to 36, i searched for individual medley : Wikipédia tells Individual medley is an assemble of four strokes. Each stroke has an equal parts of overall distance i.e. 1/4 of overall distance. The strokes are swum in this order :
 1-Butterfly
2-Backstroke
3-breaststroke
4- Freestyle excepted the three above, usually the choice is front crawl.