Karachi native Naseem Hameed won Gold medal in SAARC games in 100 meters sprint on Feb. 7 and returned home to Karachi to a great welcome today. This gives her the title of fastest lady in a region which includes some of the most populous countries of the word viz India, Pakistan and Bangladesh.

Naseem2-1

The 22-year-old clocked 11.81 seconds to clinch gold medal in the race in theSouth Asian Federation (SAF) Games Sunday, becoming Pakistan’s first female athlete to win the sprint in the competition’s 26-year history.

She returned to Pakistan today with hundreds of fans greeting her at the airport. In the following photo Naseem Hameed is seen with her parents on her return to Pakistan.

NaseemReturns_06

Dawn reports her talking to press and saying:

“I had forgotten the world for six months and trained really very, very hard under my coach Maqsood Ahmed to achieve this. It is a great moment for me to have brought glory to the country in my event after the poor showing by our national cricket team and especially since our athletics standards have been poor of late. I hope my performance will inspire the young athletes to become professionals.”

I agree with her statement that this is one positive news for Pakistan in sports after the recent cricket debacle.