Three Pak boxers lose bouts in Asian Championship

KARACHI: It was the poorest day for Pakistan in the Asian Championship as three of its boxers lost their opening bouts in Bangkok on Sunday.
After Mehmood-ul-Hassan and Awais Ali Khan won their bouts on Saturday, it was expected that Pakistani boxers would continue to win, but it was a different story on the fifth day.
In the welterweight pre-quarter-final, Tanvir Ahmed lost to Mongolia’s Byamba Tushinbat, while Nadir Khan went down against Vietnam’s Tran Phu Cuong in the bantam weight pre-quarter-final.
In the middle weight, Wasim Arshad was beaten by Truong Dinh Hoang of Vietnam in the pre-quarter-final.
Both Wasim and Tanvir were playing for the first time in any international event.
Wasim had been fielded in a bizarre way as the Gujranwala player had not even appeared in any national event.
“He was the only choice in the same class as WAPDA did not release our key boxers,” Pakistan coach Ali Bakhsh told ‘The News’ on Sunday.
WAPDA did not release experienced boxers Ali Ahmed, Sanaullah and Amir Khan who could have augmented Pakistan’s success chances in Bangkok.
The results disappointed Ali Bakhsh. “I don’t know why Nadir lost. Our boxing standard is not that bad; we shouldn’t have lost against boxers from Vietnam,” Ali said.
He did not proceed to Bangkok because he had sent his passport for getting visa of Samoa which would host the Commonwealth Youth Games next month.
Qadir Khan and Mohibullah had already been shown the exit door.
On Monday (today), Awais Ali Khan will face Kim Hyeongkyu of Korea in the 81kg pre-quarter-finals in the evening session.
Awais beat Nevil Ajith Gallage of Sri Lanka in the preliminaries on Saturday.
The Korean got bye in the first round.
Gul Zeb will meet Sakenov Ermek of Kyrgyzstan in the light welterweight pre-quarter-finals.
Gul got bye in the first round of the preliminaries.
Mehmood-ul-Hassan, the only medal hope, will play his 91kg quarter-final on Tuesday (tomorrow).
The Asian Championship serves as qualifiers for the World Championships to be held in Doha in October. Five boxers each in heavy and super heavyweight and seven pugilists each in the remaining eight classes will make it to the Doha competitions from Asia. The World Championships serve as qualifiers for the next year’s Rio Olympics.