‘IJF to take decision on resumption of activities next month’

KARACHI: A senior official of the Pakistan Judo Federation (PJF) on Wednesday said that the international judo governing body (IJF) will decide next month about resumption of international activities.

“In July, the IJF Executive Board would decide when events should be started keeping in view the COVID-19 situation,” PJF vice-president Masood Ahmed told ‘The News’.

“The Asian judo governing body (JUA) has decided to resume events from September,” the official said. “They had decided this in an online meeting of its Executive Board in Ramadan,” Masood said.All judo events upto August have been suspended due to COVID-19 situation which has gripped the whole world.

Meanwhile, Masood informed that Pakistan’s Japan-based premier judoka and Olympian Shah Hussain is doing training without any issue in Tokyo.

“In Japan, there is no such issue and Shah is training and also doing his job,” said Masood, also PJF Media Director.

Shah, who created history by featuring in the 2016 Rio Olympics after qualifying through continental quota, has already qualified for next year’s Tokyo Olympics on continental quota. He currently is a top seed in Asia in the -100kg with an Olympic ranking of 42. In the remaining qualifiers, the PJF does not seem more interested in fielding other top fighters due to financial issues.

“We had fielded Japan-based Amina Toyoda in some events but in that 90 percent of the expenses had been met by her parents,” he said.