KARACHI: Pakistan’s hopes of returning to the Olympic fold in boxing after 12 years dashed on late Monday night when Tanveer Ahmed fell in the 75 kg preliminaries of the world qualifying round for Olympics in Baku, Azerbaijan.
Tanveer, who is rated as one of the best boxers in the national circuit, failed to live up to the expectations, going 0-3 down against Lee Dongyun of Korea with the round scores being 27-30, 27-30 and 27-30.
None of the five pugilists whom the authorities had fielded could win even a single bout.
In the lightweight preliminaries on Sunday night Pakistan’s boxer Awais Ali Khan had been defeated by Uke Smajli of Switzerland 3-0 with the round scores of 30-27, 29-28, 30-27.
In the flyweight category preliminaries, Mohammad Asif had lost 0-3 to experienced Tanes Ongjunta of Thailand with the round scores of 30-27, 30-27, 30-27.
On the second day, the 2010 South Asian Games gold medallist Niamatullah had lost his bantamweight fight in the preliminaries against Caraballo Rodrigues Carlos Jose of Portugal 0-3 with the round scores being 30-26, 30-26, 30-26.
Ali Ahmed had been beaten by Anvar Yunusov of Tajikistan also 0-3 with 30-27, 3-27, 30-27 round scores.
Pakistan last featured in boxing in the 2004 Athens Games.
Pakistan had failed to take part in the Asian qualifying round for Olympics hosted by China in Qiana’n in March and April due to financial problems.
A Pakistan team boxer said that it was useless to field the side in Baku when the authorities had failed to send them to China.
“We had a chance in the Asian qualifiers as the leading boxers of that belt had already qualified through different qualification phases. We had trained well for that event but unfortunately we missed that because of financial problems,” the boxer told ‘The News’. “The world qualifying round was much tougher and winning there needed a lot of quality training which we did not get.
“When the authorities failed to send us to China for qualifiers the camp was halted and we were told to go home. When you assemble after a month and resume your training afresh it is not easy to regain the rhythm in four or five weeks and that too in your own backyard,” the boxer pointed out.
Pakistan Boxing Federation’s (PBF) secretary Iqbal Hussain took the responsibility of the failure of his brigade in Baku. “I take the responsibility of failure of my boxers,” Iqbal told ‘The News’ on Tuesday.
“I am happy that all my boxers played for full three rounds. Lack of international exposure hurt them. There is no doubt that they have the potential and could have sprung surprise had they got quality training abroad,” Iqbal said.
“We have repeated the history of 2012 and 2008 and that hurts me a lot,” Iqbal added.
With the PBF elections due in December, the failure in Baku will affect the current regime headed by Doda Khan Bhutto who seems to have dissociated himself from the federation. He neither visited the national camp nor raised his voice for the support of his pugilists.
Pakistan will be represented in Rio de Janeiro by two athletes, swimmers Lianna Swan and Haris Bandy, shooters Ghulam Mustafa and Minhal Sohail and Japan-based judoka Shah Hussain.