The size of the Pakistani contingent at this year’s Olympics at Rio triggers this Special Report -- a country with a population size as big as 190 million was able to send only seven athletes. What is worse is that the contingent is being accompanied by 17 officials.

Pakistan’s hockey team which remains its pride for having earned it gold medals in the past did not even qualify this time and hence the exceptionally small size of the contingent.

This shocking display at the top -- as a reminder of the state of sports in this country -- must make us look at the very bottom: at schools that are supposed to be the nurseries, the grassroots of sports. That is where the talent is nurtured and drawn from. In our case, these nurseries are in total disarray. A state that has abdicated its responsibility to educate its children and passed it over to the private sector cannot possibly reclaim it in the realm of sports.

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As someone rightly notes, "almost 99 per cent of top players belong to poor families… and poor people send their kids to state-owned institutions". It’s a fact that the government schools have always been much better provided in terms of facilities compared to the tiny establishments in private schools with no physical space for sports. The government schools on the other hand have always had the grounds, the pools, the gymnasiums; what they lack is proper coaching and maintenance of these facilities.

There is much that lies in between the top and bottom that involves training, facilities, funding, infighting and what not. But the bottomline is that sports is not a priority. Like education, we seem to have squandered this chance of providing a level-playing field to children and youth from deprived backgrounds to try sports as the great equaliser.

The bad part is that we get to see what we have done at international events like the Olympics.