KARACHI: As the first draft of the competition schedule of the upcoming National Games was shared, there was one glaring omission: the sport of cycling.
At the heart of its absence from the Games, scheduled to be held in Karachi from Dec 6 to 13, is a long-running dispute over the legitimacy of the Pakistan Cycling Federation and the politics at play.
“As the organising secretary, I’ve not received any complaint [over cycling’s exclusion],” Ahmed Ali Rajpoot, the secretary general of the Sindh Olympic Association, which is organising the Games under the Pakistan Olympic Association, told Dawn on Thursday.
Pressed further for a reason why it has been dropped, he added: “There is a dispute in the cycling body … and we want to ensure smooth organisation of the Games.”
Unlike Ahmed’s version of events, though, there is huge uproar in the country’s cycling community over its exclusion from the biennial sporting extravaganza with national road cycling champion Ali Ilyas terming the move “unprecedented”.
“At a time when we are proving our mettle at international events, this doesn’t make sense at all,” said Ali, who clinched the Masters title at the Asian Road and Para Cycling Championships in Thailand earlier this year, told Dawn on Thursday.
“This is a politically motivated decision.”
The POA does not recognise thePCF led by Azhar Ali Shah, which has recognition from the sport’s global governing body UCI and the Pakistan Sports Board.
In a long-running saga, that has affected the sport for over a decade, the POA’s election commission held an election for the PCF in October last year which saw Idrees Haider Khawaja elected as president.
It provoked a strong rebuke from UCI and Azhar.
“The POA decided to do away with cycling altogether from the National Games because it cannot allow the parallel body to organise it as it will draw the ire of the UCI, while allowing the Azhar-led PCF to hold it would give them their rightful legitimacy,” said Ali, who is firmly behind Azhar.
Ali rued that he was initially told that cycling had been removed from the programme since there was no velodrome for the track events in Karachi.
“They’re just excuses,” he said. “They could’ve held road cycling events in Karachi easily like the PCF has done three times in the last five years,” he said, adding that there was already a precedent to hold track cycling events in Lahore. “At the last National Games in Quetta two years ago, cycling was altogether held in Lahore.”
Azhar, meanwhile, rued that it is a continuation of the powerplay that is depriving cyclists of participation at the National Games.
“We’ve been forced to sit out and watch from the sidelines at any event where the POA has to send entries,” he told Dawn.
“At the ongoing Islamic Solidarity Games [in Saudi Arabia], I’m pretty sure that Ali would’ve returned with gold but it is because of the POA stance that he missed out. The same is happening at the National Games.”
Published in Dawn, November 22nd, 2025
