Rio Olympics 2016 to kick off today, 7 Pakistani athletes taking part

Pakistani shooters are qualified for the event, not participating on wild card entries

Rio Olympics 2016 will kick off from today (Friday) in Brazil’s capital Rio de Janeiro where more than 10,500 athletes from 206 National Olympic Committees (NOCs) are scheduled to participate.

During this mega event, at least seven Pakistani athletes will participate in shooting, judo and swimming competitions. Among them, two athletes Ghulam Mustafa Bashir and Minhal Sohail are the shooter participants.

Earlier, news regarding Pakistani shooters’ participants in Rio Olympics 2016 surfaced as they were participating on wild card entries like others Pakistani athletes.

Pakistan National Rifle Association Secretary General Javed Lodhi told Pakisan Today that Pakistan is participating in this mega event with two shooters and they are not participating on wild card entries but are properly qualified for the event.

“These shooters were qualified on ‘continental quota’ after racking up reasonable records in various international competitions,” he said.

This shooting squad comprises Ghulam, a 29-year-old Navy Marine and Minhal, a 21-year-old university student.

Lodhi said that Ghulam will participate in Rapid Fire Pistol (RFP) while Minhal will participate on Female Air Riffle (FAR) category in the games. He further said that these two participants are included among the 390 shooters participating from 97 countries of the world.

He further said that the Pakistani shooting team is participating for the fifth time in the event since 2000 and this is the first time when the country is representing two shooters in the event.

Ghulam will participate in the 25-metre RFP event for men on August 21 while Minhal will compete in the 10-metre FAR competitions on August 6 (tomorrow).

This is pertinent to mention here that this year Pakistan is participating in the Olympics with lowest ever representatives while Pakistan’s hockey team is not a part of the games first time since 1948.