Tough bouts light up National Boxing Championship

KARACHI: A handful of mouth-watering bouts in both men’s and women’s events embellished Friday’s proceedings of the Chairman KPT 40th Men and 4th Women National Boxing Championship here at the KPT Sports Complex on Friday.

In the quarter-finals, which started a bit late due to power supply issue, Army and WAPDA had an upper hand. Sindh’s Najeeb also did well to qualify for the semi-finals in men’s welterweight category by beating Navy’s Hasan 5-0 after both the youngsters gave tough time to each other.

However, experienced Naqeebullah of WAPDA, the bronze medallist of the 2019 South Asian Games, lost his quarter-final. Another seasoned fighter Mohibullah, also from WAPDA, did well to conquer Amir Sohail of Railways in the welterweight quarter-final 5-0 to ensure a medal.

In the women’s quarter-finals, some thrilling encounters were seen with Areeba of Punjab, Ummul Banin of Army, Sehrish Shehzad of PAF, Bushra Akhtar of PAF and Rimsha Ghaffar of Army winning.

As per details, in the men’s light welterweight quarter-final, Naqeebullah of WAPDA went down to Ibrar Ali of Army 4-1. Naqeeb was not seen in the best of his fitness and struggled against a solid opponent who executed his plans quite well during a good fight.

In the other quarter-final of the category, Navy’s Faisal Hanif got a walk-over when his opponent Nauman Asif of AJK did not appear for the fight.

“His blood pressure was high and so could not fight,” a source told 'The News'.

In the welterweight quarter-final, Najeeb of Sindh did a good job to ensure a medal for his province when he defeated Hasan of Navy 5-0 following a gripping fight.

In the other welterweight fight, Mohibullah lived up to the billing by overpowering Railways’s Amir Sohail 5-0 to qualify for the semi-finals.

In the same category quarter-final, Zia-ur-Rehman of Balochistan defeated Luqman of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (ABD 2nd round).

In the light middleweight quarter-finals, Ahsanullah of WAPDA whacked Subhan of Police and Saeed Anwar of Army conquered Faran Khan of Balochistan.

Meanwhile, in women’s 45-48kg category quarter-finals, Areeba of Punjab defeated Warda Kifayat of Sindh 5-0, Ummul Banin of Army defeated Sara of Railways (ABD 2nd round) and Sehrish Shehzad of PAF defeated Muhaddasa of Balochistan after a gripping fight.