Tokyo Olympics: National champion Najma Parveen finishes last in women's 200-metre heat

National champion Najma Parveen became the latest Pakistani athlete to drop out of the Tokyo Olympics 2020 after finishing last in the women’s 200-metre event.

With a time of 28.12 seconds, the 31-year-old Parveen finished seventh, the last place, in Heat 2, her worst performance by far.

Parveen could not improve on her personal best of 23.69 seconds either, and also stood last among 41 athletes taking part in the 200m sprint. She was 5.9 seconds slower than the top sprinter in her heat, and 6.01 seconds behind the top sprinter in the event overall.

She is the ninth athlete after Talha Talib (weightlifting), Haseeb Tariq (100m freestyle swimming), Mahoor Shahzad (badminton), Gulfam Joseph (men’s 10m air pistol), Bisma Khan (50m freestyle swimming), Shah Hussain Shah (100kg Ro32), GM Bashir and Khalil Akhtar (25-meter rapid fire pistol) to drop out of the Tokyo Games medal race.

Pakistani judoka Shah Hussain crashes out of Tokyo Olympics 2020

Earlier, Parveen's Olympics journey was marred with controversy when the Athletics Federation of Pakistan (AFP) withdrew her name from the global event without her consent. She got her name back on the list after intervention from the Pakistan Olympic Association (POA).

The POA also slammed the Athletics Federation of Pakistan, saying “The AFP’s act was a blatant disregard and violation of the right of the athlete, enshrined in the Athletes’ Declaration and against all efforts to ensure participation of women in sports without discrimination.”

The two organisations have been at loggerheads since 2019 when the POA temporarily suspended AFP’s membership after its athletes tested positive for banned substances in the last South Asian Games.

Meanwhile, Pakistani shooters Ghulam Bashir and Khalil Akhtar were also knocked out of the 25-meter rapid fire pistol event after failing to finish in the top 6 in the second stage of the qualifiers.

Swimmer Bisma Khan's Tokyo Olympics campaign ends, 6th Pakistani athlete to crash out

GM Bashir was hopeful of a bronze medal when he finished sixth with a score of 293 at the end of stage 1 of the qualifier on Sunday but could not maintain his position after a slightly disappointing show in stage 2.

With 286 points in the second round, which took his total score to 579, Bashir conceded four places to finish 10th at the end of stage 2.

Meanwhile, Khalil, who was at 16th place by the end of stage-1, improved his place by one position and finished 15th with a total of 572 points.

Arshad Nadeem, who is set to perform in the Athletics Javelin throw competition on Wednesday, August 3, is Pakistan’s last hope for an Olympics medal.