Karateka Saadi Abbas urges fellow athletes to work on craft, graft during lockdown

Pakistan's top karateka Saadi Abbas has admitted that life in lockdown is as hard on athletes as anyone else but instead of being glum he is staying motivated and training with what he has.

"Athletes are always motivated and eager to move ahead," he said. "A good athlete is the one who always gets up after being knocked down. A good sportsperson never gives up. This time its no different. We shouldn't give up," he told Geo News.

The 32-year-old said that during the lockdown he has watched his past videos and identified room for improvement.

"Of course it is not easy for an athlete to stay indoors and be cut off from his routine activities," he said.

"I am trying to do my training at home, twice a day. One session of physical and strength training and one session of Karat," he mentioned.

Abbas said that in full contact sports such as karate it will take time for activities to resume but he would not let go of the hope that a cure for the novel coronavirus would be found soon,

"We have to maintain social distancing and I think we'll return once we have vaccines available to prevent the virus. I am very hopeful that we'll be back soon," he said.