Bilal confident he will qualify for Olympics

KARACHI: Pakistan’s promising wrestler Mohammad Bilal is the sole hope of the country for this summer’s Tokyo Olympics as he is the fittest grappler.

Bilal, who played well in the recently-held Asian qualifying round in Almaty and the subsequent Asian Championship in the same city, is determined to earn an Olympic seat in the World Qualifying round slated to be hosted by Bulgaria in Sofia from May 6-9.

“InshaAllah I will make my best effort and am optimistic that I will qualify for the Tokyo Olympics,” Bilal told ‘The News’ on Sunday.

Bilal is the cousin of the country’s seasoned wrestler Mohammad Inam who clinched his first bronze medal in the Asian Qualifiers in Almaty.

Bilal won a bronze in the World Qualifying round for the 2016 Rio Olympics but failed to qualify for the Olympics.

“Yes, that time I had won bronze but this time I aim to finish in the top two to make it to the world’s most prestigious event,” said Bilal, who also won bronze in the 2018 Gold Coast Commonwealth Games.

Bilal went down fighting against Asian bronze medallist Bekbolot Myrzanazar Uulu of Kyrgyzstan in the 57 kg quarter-finals in Almaty.

However, a few days after that event Bilal defeated Daulet Temirzhanov of Kazakhstan in the Asian Championship.

The Kazakh has already qualified for the Olympics in the World Championship held in 2019. Pakistan had to skip that global event due to financial issues.

“Look, had we been there in the World Championship which was a massive platform for qualifying for Olympics then we could have easily made it to Tokyo Games as there were five seats up for grabs in each weight,” Bilal lamented.

“In Asian Qualifiers in Almaty we had the ability to earn seats but unfortunately could not click. The issue is that for the last one year or so we did not get any camp and mostly we trained in our own arenas,” Bilal said.

“If you have seen the Asian qualifiers then you will have noticed that we did not play bad wrestling,” Bilal said.

He urged the government to give some attention to wrestling. “The big issue is that there is no proper wrestling hall in Pakistan. We move to the major stages for competition from our own small arenas and still compete effectively and pick bronze medals. If the state offers proper support to us then that day will not be far away when we will win medals in the Olympics. We have a lot of potential,” Bilal said.

He said that he would not repeat the mistakes. “I will try to learn from my mistakes. I will go deep to earn an Olympic seat in Bulgaria,” Bilal said.

Bilal will be accompanied by Haroon Abid, whose performance in both the Asian Qualifiers and the subsequent Asian Championship in Almaty was not good.

Bilal had lost the bronze medal fight in the Asian Championship a few days ago. Inam will not go to Bulgaria due to a knee injury.