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Tuesday March 19, 2024

Inam stamps his authority at World Beach Games

By Our Correspondent
October 15, 2019

KARACHI: Two-time world beach wrestling champion Pakistan’s Mohammad Inam was just one win short of a gold medal after qualifying for the final of the World Beach Games wrestling event in Doha on Monday.

The two-time Commonwealth Games gold medallist gave a clear message to the world’s leading grapplers that he can conquer the world even if he is not getting the best training facilities. And he dazzled the stage at the Katara Beach in Qatar’s capital by winning five fights on the trot to set final clash with Marsagishvili Dato of Georgia. The title clash was scheduled at 11:25pm Monday night.

Inam was off to a flying start when he defeated Andrade Da Silver Adao of Portugal 3-0 in the first round of the 90 kilogramme competitions.

He then downed Marsagishvili Dato of Georgia in his second fight. The Gujranwala-born grappler edged past Ozkan Murat of Turkey 1-0.

In the quarter-final, he defeated Azerbaijan’s Kanan Aliyev 3-1 before he overcame Garcia Perez Pedro Jacinto of Spain 3-0 in the semi-final. Inam, who won world beach titles in 2017 and 2018 in Turkey, is the only athlete from Pakistan featuring in the World Beach Games.

The Games had been scheduled to be hosted by the United States in San Diego but were shifted to Doha because of sponsorship issues.

Inam qualified for the event when he finished with a silver medal in the Beach World Series in Brazil early this year. He then wanted to feature in a couple of more World Series in Ukraine and Croatia but could not do so because of financial and fitness issues.

A knee problem forced Inam to stay away from training for quite some time. However, a couple of months ago he recovered and started training on his own at Gujranwala. Pakistan Sports Board (PSB) managed a 20-day training camp for him at Lahore along with three leading wrestlers.