Pakistan’s First Athlete To Own A Karate Medal

Nargis Hameedullah, who had come back empty-handed from the 4th Islamic Solidarity Games held in Baku, Azerbaijan in 2016 when she was 17 years old, has now returned from Jakarta, Indonesia, with a bronze medal from the 18th Asian Games.

“I still remember how sad I had been when I had lost the chance of winning a bronze medal in Baku,” says Nargis Hameedullah. “I ran off to the bathroom to cry. Noticing my red eyes, later, my coach Khalid Noor had told me not to feel bad as I had given it my all. He also told me to remember the defeat and take strength from it.”

The 19 years old Pakistan girl, Nargis has a black belt first dan in Shotokan style. A night before her fight, she had taken too much pressure.

“After losing the semi-final match to the girl from China, I was informed that the girl happened to have a world ranking so my losing to her was not such a terrible thing. But then I was also told that my fight for the bronze medal was going to be with a contestant from Nepal whom I had it in me to beat. And that is what put me under pressure”

Her coach, Shah Muhammad Shah noticed that she was panicking Before the fight, her coach covered her head with a wet towel then and asked her to stop thinking about the results. There was so much going on in her mind at that time that she had no clue what to do even though her coach tried calming her down and asking her to forget everything. According to Nargis, whenever she thinks about this scenario it makes her laugh.

As the fight was about to take place, she wished she could take a U-turn but that was not possible. Her legs were shivering and she stepped on the mat. As the fight began, she started spotting her opponent’s weaknesses and took advantage of her. She had beat her 3-1. As they got to know about the results, Nargis and her coach, both of them were shedding tears due to happiness and then she performed the sajdah to thank God.

“I have requested my karate association to see if I can get a university scholarship through the Pakistan Karate Federation in Lahore,” she says.

We believe that Nargis should be given scholarship as she totally deserves it.  Nargis recently passed in her final intermediate exams with an A-1 grade where she got 947 out of a total of 1,100 marks. Her parents have always worked really hard for her and her siblings. She has this dream to stand on her own legs soon and support her family. What is your opinion regarding the story of Nargis Hameedullah? Share it with us in the comments below.