Peshawar's Broken Track: When Promises Replace Progress

 

Musarrat Ullah Jan – Kikxnow Digital Creator

Peshawar's athletes have trained on concrete for nearly four years. Not on a running track, not even on a proper field, just bare cement. The once-vaunted athletics ground of the Peshawar Sports Complex has now become a mute witness to administrative apathy and misplaced priorities.

The missing tartan track, which was to have been completed last August, is still missing. Instead, there are repeated statements of intent, missed deadlines, and sustained official silence. What should be an athletic facility has now become just another example of how inaction masquerading as “process” can destroy sports development through bureaucracy.

The athletes who come to train every morning do so out of passion and not because the system supports them. The feet are subjected to concrete surfaces that burn in summer and crack in winter. Coaches warn of long-term physical damage, but no one from above is heeding a word. Running on cement leads to severe stress injuries, from shin splints and torn ligaments to permanent knee and back pain.

The recurring injuries have already compelled several young athletes of Peshawar to quit the sport. Yet, the officials continue to describe the delay in the construction as a “routine administrative matter.”

The irony hurts. Budgets get approved, tenders floated, funds are "under process," committees come into being. But on the ground, athletes train on a surface that no international body would ever approve for athletics.

Since then, every financial year has repeated the same story: funds allocated, work is expected to start “soon,” and no progress is seen. The last official announcement claimed that the tartan track would be completed by August 2024. Fourteen months later, not a single meter of that track exists.

Inside the Sports Directorate, files are moving, albeit at a snail's pace, and largely in circles. The changing of contractors, delayed approvals, and documentation have become the new meaning of work. A whole generation of young athletes is continuing to suffer silently, watching their years of training get wasted.

The provincial government of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa spends millions each year on sports infrastructure, meaning that on paper at least, Peshawar should have boasted a world-class athletics facility by now. But sports budgets in KP follow a familiar pattern: money approved, little to none utilized, and the remainder “re-lapsed” at the end of the fiscal year.

When pressed for answers, officials speak of “technical evaluations,” “fund release delays,” or “procurement procedures.” But these are not explanations — they are excuses repeated so often that they have begun to sound like policy. The result is so simple: public money circulates within offices while the athletes continue running on cement.

The sports administration in Peshawar works on a bureaucratic mindset: paperwork means achievement. The files are more important than the athletes, while progress is measured with meetings, not meters. Officials entrusted with supervising the sport's infrastructure have not visited the site for months. Repeated inquiries from journalists about the status of affairs at the Directorate of Sports yield only vague responses, such as “the process is ongoing.”That "process," however, has produced nothing-no track, no progress, no accountability.

Doctors who work with sports medicine in Peshawar confirm a worrying rise in injuries among young runners. Training on cement results in repetitive strain to muscles, tendons, and bones, with chronic pain and shortened athletic life. These cases are not one-offs but reflect a pattern of systemic neglect.

The Pakistan Sports Board and the provincial authorities are fully aware of these risks. Still, the lack of urgency shows how removed decision-makers are from the ground realities.

Had such conditions confronted any athlete in Islamabad or Lahore, the issue would have gained national attention, but in Peshawar, silence is the official response.

Sports infrastructures fail in Pakistan not because of poverty but because of priorities. Projects that ought to take six months extend to several years. Contractors are selected on connections rather than competence. Supervision is lacking, and follow-up is non-existent.

The missing tartan track at Peshawar Sports Complex is not just a local issue; it reflects a national pattern of how sports is managed in Pakistan.

Athletes train for years for events that never materialize. The years of peak performance are wasted in a wait for something as simple as a safe surface to train on. And when injury occurs, there is no rehabilitation facility, no medical support, and no recognition of failure at the systemic level.

And despite several media reports, the Sports Directorate has kept complete silence. No internal inquiry, no timeline, and no transparent update was shared with the public even after four years of delays.

The Directorate’s social media accounts continue posting photos of ceremonial meetings and visits — none of which deal with the real issue: a city without an athletics track.

The public has also become indifferent. In a province grappling with unemployment, security, and inflation, sports seldom make it to the priority list.

But what this neglect does is that it slowly kills the hope of a generation that sees sports as their only way out.

From boxing, hockey, and athletics, Peshawar has pride in its talented sportsmen. Yet, every new generation is forced to start from zero. Without proper facilities, training programs, or transparent systems, the pool of talent keeps on shrinking in the city.

A local coach put it more bluntly: “We are not short of talent — we are short of seriousness.”

That one sentence sums up the whole tragedy of sports in Peshawar.

A Call for Accountability It is time to replace ceremonial speeches and photo shoots. The Directorate of Sports and the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government must answer a simple question: Where is the tartan track? Who was to see that it was finished? What happened to the amount for it? And why should athletes be expected to continue risking their health because of official incompetence? Unless transparent answers and visible action are made, every promise in the name of "sports development" will be meaningless. Conclusion The saga of the missing tartan track in Peshawar amounts to more than an administrative failure — it’s a moral one.

 It reveals a mindset where the papers are more important than the performance, and in which dreams of budding athletes are sacrificed at the altar of bureaucratic comfort. For now, Peshawar's runners will keep training on concrete - not because they want to, but because they have no other choice. They are running not only against time but also against neglect. Until the promised track materializes, the only thing that is moving fast in Peshawar’s sports system is the cycle of excuses.

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