Hassam Munir, Sports and Health Editor
Featured image courtesy of Alejandro Dada
Lions swimmer Haseeb Tariq won a bronze medal for Pakistan in the 100-metre backstroke at the 2016 South Asian Games on February 10th, setting national records on his way to the podium.
Tariq swam the men’s backstroke in 1:02.93 to qualify for the finals. In the finals, he improved on his timing and finished at 1:01.04, but that was not enough to beat P.S. Madhu and Sethu Manickavel, both representing India, who won the gold and silver medals respectively. Tariq also competed in the 50-metre freestyle, the 200-metre freestyle, and the 4×100-metre freestyle relay. In the first of these, Tariq set a national record for Pakistan with a time of 2:01.84. He set another record for Pakistan by swimming his leg of the relay in 54.30 seconds.
“I’m really happy and proud of all my achievements at the SAG 2016,” says Tariq. “To scoop up a medal among some really fast competitors makes me extremely satisfied with all the hard work I had put in prior to the Games.”
Tariq shares the credit with his training at York, where the finance student has been swimming for three years. “Training at York is the sole reason for all my achievements,” he says. “Coming back from the trials just a month before the actual Games, I did not really think I had more room to improve in such a limited amount of time, but it did end up helping me a lot.”
The South Asian Games, which are held every other year, feature athletes from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka competing in a variety of sports. The 12th South Asiam Games were held in Guwahati and Shillong, India.
“This was my second opportunity to represent Pakistan,” says Tariq. “It’s always a proud moment to hear your name with the name of your country. However, there was a greater responsibility for me to do well as we were competing against our neighbour countries and had a reputation at stake.”
There is often more than just a reputation at stake in any relations between South Asian nations. Tensions between Pakistan and India in particular have been rising in recent months, but Tariq believes that events such as the Games are a way to dissipate those tensions to some extent.
“Such events improve relations,” he says. “Going into the Games, I thought the Indian public would be hostile toward us Pakistanis, but I was stumped by their welcoming nature. Such events are really important to erase misconceptions about other countries.”
Tariq believes that the Lions competitive club for swimming should be turned into a full-scale varsity program, but he encourages members of the York community to try swimming. The pool is “a great place to make some good friends,” he says.
“Swimming definitely makes me focus more on school and of course, physically, it’s the best sport to play in my opinion as it engages all of your muscles, keeping you fit and active.”
Tariq quickly returned from South Asia, bronze medal in hand, to represent his university in the Ontario University Athletics championships in London. There, he made it to the final round of the men’s backstroke, in which he came in at 13th place, and in the 50-metre he broke his own York record to set a new record of 26.63 seconds.
In the future, he hopes to compete in the upcoming 2016 FINA World Swimming Championships in Windsor, and in the 2020 Summer Olympics.
Tariq has made Pakistani students at York proud. “We are extremely happy to see our member Haseeb Tariq accomplish such a milestone and set a record for others,” says Muhammad Nisar, president of York’s Pakistani Students Association. “We encourage him to work harder and accomplish all the goals that he wishes to succeed while representing himself as a proud Pakistani.”
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