Pakistan to feature in Asian-Pacific Judo C’ships

KARACHI: Cash-starved Pakistan Judo Federation (PJF) has decided to field a bunch of its leading fighters in the Asian-Pacific Judo Championships Seniors and Teams 2019.

The event will be held at Fujairah, United Arab Emirates (UAE), from April 20 to 23. “The government is yet to release us the grant but as Asian Championships are very important, we have decided to send at least three fighters to Fujairah by seeking the support of some sponsors,” a senior official of PJF told 'The News' on Wednesday.

He was quick to add that the federation had been passing through a financial crunch. The PSB has not been releasing grants to national federations for the last several months that has created a huge handicap in the way of sports governing bodies to focus on the build-up of their athletes.

The official said a few fighters had already been shortlisted for the purpose. He said that the final squad would be announced in the next four days.

The official said that as Pakistan still had a chance to qualify for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, sending judokas to the UAE for the continental event would help the fighters improve their Olympics rankings.

The 2020 judo Olympic qualifiers have already started. Its first event was the World Championships which was staged at Azerbaijan in August last year. Pakistan's qualifying chances this time don't seem to be bright because of the financial issue.

Japan-based Olympian Shah Hussain's Olympic ranking has dropped to 151. He will need to improve it if he is to qualify for the Olympics which will be held in his hometown in Tokyo in 2020. If he won a medal in the Fujairah event, it would improve his rankings hugely. But he would have to keep improving his ranking till May 2020.

It means he will have to feature in maximum qualifying rounds. His father Hussain Shah, former Olympics bronze medallist, told this correspondent from Tokyo on Wednesday that he was very anxious for his son as the government of Pakistan was not financing the PJF.

“If my son did not feature in the UAE Asian Championships it would damage his qualifying chances for Olympics,” Hussain said. However, the late decision of the PJF to send the best players to the UAE is a blessing for Hussain Shah's son, who became the first judoka of Pakistan to feature in Olympics when he competed at the 2016 Rio Olympics.