Inam wins Beach Wrestling World Series title

KARACHI: Pakistan’s premier wrestler and the world’s beach wrestling king Mohammad Inam kept his supremacy when he on Saturday romped to another major title after beating Ukraine’s Oleksii Yakovchuk 3-0 in the 90 kilogramme final to win the Beach Wrestling World Series held in Rome.

Inam finished his glorious journey by toppling the Ukrainian 3-0. Inam’s opponent in the final was the same who had been beaten by the Gujranwala-born wrestler in his first round fight on Friday.

“Thanks God, I won five fights on the trot and won the world title,” Inam wrote to this correspondent in a whatsapp communication.

Earlier in the day, Inam had defeated Omer Faruk Karadeniz of Turkey 2-1 in the quarter-final. He then prevailed over the Romanian grappler Mihai Nicolae Palaghia in the semi-final 3-0 to set the final clash with Oleksii.

On Friday Inam defeated world bronze medallist Oleksii Yakovchuk of Ukraine in the opening fight before prevailing over Greece’s Georgios Tsaknakis in his second fight.

On September 10-11, Greece will host the Beach Wrestling World Series in Katerini, but Inam’s participation is not yet known. An official of Pakistan Wrestling Federation (PWF) said Inam had not got a Greece visa.

The PWF secretary Arshad Sattar said that Inam would not feature in the Greece event as he did not get a visa. “We have not got a Greece visa and Inam will not feature in the Greece event. We will write to the United World Wrestling (UWW) to give Inam points for the Greece series as well as for the France series which he missed in July due to visa issues,” he told this correspondent.

“He deserves the points for the missed events. And if given, I am sure Inam will make it to the final of World Series to be held in Romania on September 25-26,” Sattar said.

Inam’s huge achievements are in beach wrestling. He also has to his credit golds in the World Beach Wrestling Championships held in Turkey in 2017 and 2018. He won gold in the inaugural World Beach Games in Doha in 2019, in the 2010 Delhi Commonwealth Games and 2018 Gold Coast Commonwealth Games.

He also has to his credit gold in the 2016 Vietnam Asian Beach Games, silver in the 2014 Phuket Asian Beach Games and golds in the 2016 and 2019 South Asian Games.

Meanwhile, Pakistan’s Zaman Anwar won just one fight in three when he downed Rares Daniel Chintoan 2-1. Earlier, he went down to Ukraine’s Ivan Malin and Romania’s Vasile Vlod Cares.

Inayatullah was the other grappler who took part in the event.