Pakistan Olympic contingent to have more officials than athletes

Pakistan's contingent for the upcoming Rio Olympics will have more officials than athletes. With the national hockey side failing to qualify for the games, their contingent will only include seven athletes while 11 officials are set to accompany them on their trip.

The athletes who will represent Pakistan at Rio 2016 are swimmers Lianna Swan and Haris Bandey, judoka Shah Hussain, shooters Ghulam Mustafa and Minhal Sohail and two sprinters. Of the seven competing, only three reside in the country with the rest preferring to hone their talents abroad.

Not a single athlete passed the qualification process and had to rely on wild card entries to compete in the Olympics. No boxer from Pakistan qualified for the Olympics, although one of their only two non-hockey medals came from boxing in 1988 when Hussain Shah won the bronze.

Arif Hasan, the President of the Pakistan Olympic Association (POA), blamed the Pakistan Sports Board (PSB) for the current state of affairs in the country, particularly lamenting the downward spiral of the men's hockey team who failed to qualify for the Olympics, for the first time in their history.

"Hockey is our national sport and through it we always had hope of winning a medal in the Olympics. But even that has gone now," he was quoted ass saying by news18.

Pakistan have won three hockey Olympic gold medals in the past with the last one coming in 1984 at Los Angeles. Since then, their best finish has been the fourth place which they secured at the Sydney Olympics in 2000.