It was the late 1990s on a crisp December morning in Karachi, the cloudless blue sky and glossy pool smiling at each other. Swimmers hunched over the edge of the pool before diving in as three technical officials standing behind with manual stopwatches clutched between their index finger and palm. Races concluded and left gold medallists and photo-finishers alike clueless on whether they had set a personal best time or age-group record. They simply had to wait for the results to be announced several minutes later, which translates to eons in the mind of an athlete. Except it wasn’t the 1990s — it was 2025, and swimming at the 35th National Games embodied the phrase “back to the future”. Sindh had finally caught up to the other provinces and installed touchpads in a 50m swimming pool in Karachi as per rules mandated by the Pakistan Swimming Federation. But no sooner had the imported touchpads and display boards been installed that they went kaput. Rumours of faulty technical equipment circulating the night bef...