EDITORIAL: Pakistan has accepted a formidable challenge by assuming the responsibility to stage the Eighth Asian Games in Islamabad four years from now when even a country like India backed out. ... It is therefore in the fitness of things to ... start the preparations in right earnest. ... Evidently the problem needs to be tackled on three main counts, namely, financial, physical and organisational. As behoves a selfrespecting nation stress has been laid on self-reliance. An immediate target of Rs 10 million has been set and passed on ... to a body of leading bankers... . .

Apart from the organisational challenge that Pakistan will have to encounter as the host, its performance on the ground will also be subjected to a severe test. Iran`s infinitely improved record during the Teheran Games has ... underlined the long distance our sporting talent will have to cover. Even otherwise our dismal showing ... has emphasised the need for a leap forward. Besides hockey ...

our quest for a gold medal was largely a wild goose chase. With an impressive contingent, numerically speaking (160 participants and officials) the outcome was ... disappointing.