PHF plans various events to celebrate Olympic Day

KARACHI: The PHF will celebrate the “Olympic Day” with full zeal by involving all hockey fraternity across the country, ‘The News’ has learnt.

The celebrations will continue for one week.

PHF secretary Shahbaz Ahmed said that the Olympic Day would be celebrated in the last week of June.

He said the PHF would celebrate the Olympic Day according to the guidelines of the IOC and the FIH.

The PHF has received directives from the FIH to celebrate the Olympic Day.

Sources in the PHF said the families of hockey greats who played for Pakistan and brought laurels would be invited to the events organised by the PHF.

A veterans event would be organised for male and female players of yesteryears, he added.

Youth and kids events would also be part of the celebrations.

Besides, special children hockey event would also be part of this programme.

Meanwhile, it was learnt the PHF will hold a press conference on Tuesday (tomorrow) in Lahore to announce the details of the first Hockey-5 championship. The PHF will unveil the logo of the Hockey-5 event, names of the participating team, their captains, coaches and other officials.

The sources said the PHF was facing problems in arranging live coverage of Hockey-5 but was determined to resolve the issue at any cost.

Hockey-5, a faster version of the game, is considered equivalent of the T20 cricket.

PHF has been unable to get airtime owing to the Euro Cup matches live coverage and that of T20 cricket tournaments being held in Ramazan.

The event is likely to be started from the 15th of Ramazan.

The chief coach of Pakistan hockey team Olympian Tahir Zaman has said that all preparations had been finalised.

He termed the event very important for Pakistan hockey in the current circumstances as most of the junior players would participate in it.  The same boys will go on a European tour and later participate in the Junior Hockey World Cup.