By Ijaz Chaudhry
1968 Olympics- Farooq Khan with gold medal
Farooq Khan, a member of Pakistan’s Gold Medal-winning team of the 1968 Olympics, breathed his last in Lahore on Friday.
A speedy right winger, he had a very short international career.
On the domestic scene, he first represented Lahore Zone before joining Pakistan Railways, a strong outfit of the time. With them, he won the national championships in 1965.
A versatile sportsman at Government College, Lahore, Farooq Khan also excelled in athletics. National Champion at 800 metres, he is one of the very few Pakistanis who are dual international. He represented Pakistan in the 800 metres at the 1962 Asian Games. Interestingly, at the 1962 Asian Games, where the Pakistan hockey team won the gold, Farooq played with the team during practice sessions.
He hailed from the illustrious Punjabi-speaking Pathan families of Jalandhar’s bastis, who produced many outstanding sportsmen.
These included hockey greats Feroze Khan (Olympic gold medallist, 1928) and Pakistan’s captains in the early 1950s, H.K.Burki and Niaz Khan.
In cricket, Dr. Jahangir Khan was a member of the Indian team that played the country’s inaugural test match in 1932. Later, Pakistan’s three captains came from this clan: Javed Burki, Majid Khan and the greatest of them, Imran Khan.
Ijaz Chaudhry writes on hockey & other sports. For more about him & his work, visit http://www.sportscorrespondent.info