Shah falls at first hurdle in Olympics — second time in a row

KARACHI: The country’s premier judoka Shah Hussain once again failed to click when he was shown the exit door at the first hurdle as he fell to Egypt’s Darwish Ramadan in the first round of -100 kilogramme judo competitions of the Tokyo Olympics on Thursday.

This was the second successive time in the Olympics that Shah lost his first fight. In 2016 Rio Olympics, too, he was defeated in his first fight — by a Ukranian fighter .

Shah’s father Hussain Shah was very disappointed. “I am very sad,” Hussain told ‘The News’ from Tokyo. “He had worked hard but I don’t know why he faltered at the first hurdle,” said Hussain, a former Olympics bronze medallist boxer.

Pakistan Judo Federation (PJF) said that Shah lost his knockout fight against the Egyptian in the last minute because of accumulated minor penalties.

“He played very well and did not let the former world bronze medallist and current African champion Ramadan Darwish play his aggressive judo, the style he is famous for. Ramadan tried many techniques but all were neutralised by Shah. However, Shah made minor mistakes while countering those,” the PJF said.

“Darwish is World No13 who had earned 37 international medals including 17 golds in various continental and Grand Slams. The confident-looking World No 50 Shah applied techniques and forced the renowned aggressive judoka to be defensive to the extent that his opponent was awarded ‘penalty of defensive posture’, the PJF said.

Shah received three shidos (light penalty), first because of stepping out of combat area, second because of defensive play and the last one for escaping with head. These three light penalties resulted in hansoku make (accumulated light penalties), which declares the opponent the winner, PJF explained.

Meanwhile, the PJF vice-president Masood Ahmed said that Shah gave an impressive performance. “It is a fact that there was no comparison of the exposure the two fighters had had. After finishing seventh in Rio 2016, Darwish had more than 70 international appearances whereas Shah featured in around 20 international arenas,” Masood said, trying to defend Shah’s performance.

Darwish in the next round lost to World No1 in the same way Hansaku machi (3 light penalties).

Masood also told ‘The News’ that keeping in view the load next year and then the 14th South Asian Games in Pakistan the PJF would try to play Shah in international circuit for the next two years.

“You know the coming two years are very important. Shah has got a lot of experience and if we play him in Commonwealth Games, Asian Games and South Asian Games he may pull off medals for us. We will try to play in all these events and will plan accordingly,” Masood said.

“Look, Darwish was very experienced both in exposure and age as compared to Shah but still he kept him quiet and that’s a plus point,” Masood said.

“Judo is a very tough game. Nations invest a lot in their fighters. Whatever we could do we did for Shah and in future too we will try to provide him facilities so that he could earn a few medals for Pakistan,” Masood said.