LAHORE: As the national squash team was off to a winning start in the 18th Asian Games event being held in Indonesia, Pakistan won its third bronze medal in athletics.
Pakistan’s Arshad Nadeem claimed bronze medal in men’s javelin throw category but the national players suffered defeats in three major events – karate, boxing and volleyball.
India’s Neeraj Chopra won gold medal and China’s Qizhen Liu took silver ahead of Nadeem. Nadeem of Wapda’s throw measured 80.75 mertres that earned Pakistan their third bronze medal. Pakistan, however, dismantled Thailand quite impressively 8-1 in baseball event of the games.
Pakistan is represented by four male players and as many female players with three officials and they had wins over Japan and Nepal. In their first pool match, Pakistan team beat Japan by 2-1, whereas in 2nd pool match Pakistan team beat Nepal by 3-0. In baseball, Pakistan moved past Thailand 8-1 with score tries coming from Arslan Jamshid - 2, Faqeer Hussain – 2, Ubaid Ullah – 2, Sumair Zawar – 1, M Zakir – 1 and a home run from Arslan Jamshid. Pakistan missed out another bronze medal in men’s karate of the games. Pakistan lost the semi-final bout of the Asian Games 2018 75-kilogram karate event to Saudi Arabia. Pakistan’s Saadi Ghulam Abbas lost the fight to Saudi Raef Adel Alturkistani 4-2.
The Saudi fighter scored four yukos while his Jordanian counterpart had two yukos to his name. Abbas had beat Hamza Abulheifa 3-0 in the round of 16. He went on to beat Qassim Ghavidel 6-1 of Qatar in the last eight stage. He then beat Malaysia’s Sharmendran Raghonathan 10-5.
In boxing, Pakistan suffered the biggest defeats of all with none of the boxers winning so far. Naqeebullah clinched the only two victories for Pakistan in the tournament so far.
He beat Majid al-Naqbi of the United Arab Emirates 3-0 in the men’s bantamweight 60-kilogramme round of the 32 bout. He went on to clinch a 3-2 win over Bhutan’s Nima Dorji in the 16 fight. Mohibullah lost to Powei Tu of Chinese Taipei 1-4 in the men’s 49kg by light flyweight fight. India’s Pavitra was awarded the victory over Rukhsana Perveen when the referee stopped their 60kg round of the 16 bout.
In the men’s flyweight 52kg round of 16 fight, Azat Usenaliev of Kyrgyzstan defeated Syed M Asif 5-0. Gul Zaib suffered a 5-0 defeat at the hands of Kazakhstan’s Aslanbek Shymbergenov in the men’s welterweight 69kg round of the 16 competition.
Nazym Kyzaibay of Kazakhstan won their women’s flyweight 51kg round of 16 fight against Razia Bano Aziz after the referee stopped the fight. Hyunsuk Lim of South Korea beat Suleman Baloch 5-0 in the men’s light welterweight 64kg round of the 16 fight while India’s Krishan Vikas beat Tanveer Ahmed 5-0 in the men’s middleweight 75kg 16 fight.
In the 2014 Asian Games, only boxer Muhammad Waseem qualified for the semi-finals. Pakistan did not do well in the 2018 Commonwealth Games boxing event either as the contingent of four boxers could not advance past the quarter finals.
Syed Asif was beaten 5-0 by Scotland’s Reece McFadden whereas Awais Ali Khan was eliminated by Ato Plodzicki Faoagali of Samoa 5-0 as well.
In volleyball, South Korea defeated Pakistan 3-0 yesterday. The Korean side won the match 25-19, 25-22 and 25-17 against Pakistan.
Kwangin Jeon and Sungmin Moon scored two aces each for South Korea in the classification match. Sungmin scored 17spikes while Murad Jehan scored 14 spikes. Meanwhile, Minister for Inter-Provincial Coordination Fehmida Mirza on Monday congratulated Pakistani Karate player Nargis for winning bronze medal for Pakistan.
The minister said that there was no dearth of talent in the field of sports in the country and Nargis performed brilliantly and brought fame to Pakistan, said a press release issued here.Fehmida lauded tremendous performance of Nargis and hoped that she would continue to bring laurels to country in future also.
