Maaz wins bronze in kick-boxing

ASHGABAT: After a couple of days of medal-drought, Pakistan finally added to their tally when Maaz Khan got bronze as he lost his 75 kilogramme semi-final of kick-boxing competitions here at the Olympic Complex on Monday.

Maaz, who won gold in wushu in 2010 Dhaka South Asian Games, lost his full contact semi-final to Iran’s Hossein Karami 0-3 with the scores of 2-9, 2-5 and 3-5.This was the first appearance from Pakistan in kick-boxing in the Asian Indoor and Martial Arts Games.

Maaz had defeated Rohollah Mohammadi of Afghanistan 2-0 in his quarter-finals last week.With this fight, Pakistan wrapped up their kick-boxing journey with just one bronze. The other six fighters had already fallen.

The bronze medal took Pakistan’s medal tally to 21: two gold, three silver and 16 bronze. Till filing of this report, Pakistan were trailing at the 21st place. Turkmenistan were heading the chart as usual with 85 gold, 64 silver and 79 bronze. They were followed by China (34-23-20) and Iran (26-18-56).

In Olympic freestyle wrestling, Pakistan’s Mohammad Inam and Abdul Wahab lost their repechage bronze medal fights. Inam, Pakistan’s most experienced grappler, went 8-5 down to  Kazakhstan’s Davlumbenyev Adilet in his repechage bronze medal fight of the 86kg competitions.

Inam had got a bye in the first round before beating America Samoa’s Puletasi Nolan Ili 11-0 in pre-quarter-finals. The 2010 Commonwealth Games gold medallist lost his quarter-final against former world silver medallist Ezzatollah Akbari Zarinkolaei of Iran 2-6. As Ezzatollah made it to the final, Inam was given repechage bout in which he whacked China’s Lin Zushen 4-0 to qualify for repechage bronze medal fight that he eventually lost.

His cousin Abdul Wahab also wasted a golden opportunity of winning bronze when he lost his 61kg repechage bronze medal fight against Turkmenistan’s Mekan Orazow 4-12 in a hotly-contested battle in a packed gymnasium.  Wahab had also got a bye in the first round. He defeated Zubaidullah Timori of Afghanistan in the quarter-finals 11-0, but went 6-11 down to Saparmyrat Myradow of Turkmenistan 6-11 in the semi-final to settle repechage bronze medal fight with Mekan.

Mohammad Bilal, in 57kg competitions, had already exited on Sunday. Azhar Hussain (59kg), the 2010 Commonwealth Games gold medallist, Shoukat Ali (66kg) and Mohammad Umair (98kg) will show their worth in Greco-Roman wrestling competitions on Tuesday (today).

In short course swimming competitions here at the Aquatics Centre, Pakistani swimmers competed in their final events, without having given any positive performance to finish their journey.

In men’s 100m Individual Medley heats, Pakistan’s Mohammad Yahya Khan clocked 1:00.68 to finish 18th overall out of 31 contestants. In the same event, Farrukh Shehzad ended 29th with a timing of 1:08.65.

In women’s 100m IM heats, Bisma clocked 1:12.13 to finish ninth out of 20 contestants. She just missed the final spot as India’s Rajendra Pansare, who finished overall eighth to qualify, clocked 1:07.87.

In the same event’s heats, Jehanara Nabi, only 13, finished 16th with a timing of 1:19.39.

In women’s 100m freestyle heats, Bisma finished 16th out of 30 contestants with a timing of 1:02.87.

Aisha Mishael Ayub ended 18th by registering 1:03.67 in the same event.

In men’s 100m freestyle heats, Yahya Khan finished 27th out of 42. Yahya clocked 55.15.

In women’s 50m breaststroke heats, Ramsha Imran ended 15th out of 23 swimmers with a timing of 38.18.

Pakistan, carrying Yahya, Hamza, Farrukh and Waqas, finished at the last 13th place with a timing of 4:14.00 in men’s 4x100m medley relay. Uzbekistan and Qatar did not start.

Ramsha Imran finished 15th out of 23 participants in women’s 50m breaststroke heats swim-off-1 by clocking 38.18.