Haroon awaits grant to go for training in Korea

ISLAMABAD, Oct 22 (APP):The Pakistan Taekwondo Federation (PKF) was waiting for Pakistan Sports Board’s (PSB) response to their request for a grant of Rs 2 million, to send country’s top athlete Haroon Khan to Korea to prepare for the 2020 Tokyo Olympic qualifiers.

“We wrote to PSB one and a half months ago, for two million rupees grant to better prepare our only Olympic hope Haroon, but we have not yet received any reply from them,” PTF President Lt. Col. (R) Waseem Ahmed told APP on Tuesday.

Waseem said the federation wanted to prepare Haroon for Olympic qualifiers in Korea. “We wanted to send him for three months training to Korea,” he said.

He said if the plan worked and we get the grant then Haroon would get training three months in Korea and then he would go directly for participation in the Olympic qualifiers to be held in China in March 2020.

“We can pitch four athletes (2 male and 2 female) in the qualifiers. Besides Haroon the best performing athletes in the South Asian Games scheduled to be held in Nepal in December would get a ticket for the qualifiers,” he said.

Waseem said, “we had also requested PSB to hire services of a Korean coach to prepare athletes for the Olympic qualifiers. But we were also awaiting for a reply on the matter,” he said.