Young athletes from the CM Punjab Sports Academies programme compete abroad from October 22 to 24 in the run-and-shoot discipline drawn from modern pentathlon
LAHORE: A team from the Sports Board Punjab (SBP) Laser Run Academy left Lahore for Thailand on Thursday to compete in an international laser run competition being held from October 22 to 24, giving players from the province’s new sports academies a rare outing on the global stage.
SBP Vice Chairman Salman Malik and Director General Sports Punjab Muhammad Tariq Qureshi saw the team off and handed out kits. Director Admin Abid Shaukat, Deputy Director Zahoor Ahmed and Muhammad Aamir Khan were also present.
Who is going
The players named by the Sports Board are M Azan Ali, M Shayaan, Abdullah Ahmed and Umais Saleemi, with Mian Rizwan, Mubashir Ali and Sadan travelling as officials. The board described the squad as a five-member team accompanied by three officials, but named only four players; the fifth was not identified. The name of the competition and its host city were also not given.
A sport built for young talent
Laser run combines running with laser-pistol shooting: athletes run a series of laps and must hit targets at a shooting range between them, with the clock running throughout. It is the combined final event of modern pentathlon and is governed internationally by the Union Internationale de Pentathlon Moderne (UIPM), which promotes it as an accessible entry point to the sport because it needs little equipment and no horses or fencing kit.
That low cost makes it a good fit for Punjab’s academy model. The SBP has been setting up CM Punjab Sports Academies in a range of disciplines to identify and train young athletes, alongside the CM Punjab Youth Games that aim to put millions of children on sports grounds this winter.
“CM Punjab Sports Academies had helped bring new talent to the forefront,” Qureshi said, calling the players’ participation in international events a welcome sign. He said the board was taking effective measures to identify, nurture and promote emerging talent across the province, and expressed hope the team would perform well.
The bigger picture
Pakistani athletes in niche Olympic-linked disciplines rarely get international exposure, and results at events such as this help build rankings and coaching knowledge at home. Talent pathways are widening in other sports too, with the cricket board recently opening 20 regional under-19 academies, and the province planning a modern sports city in Lahore.
The team is expected to return after the event concludes on October 24.
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