Inam keeps semis hope alive in Constanta

KARACHI: Mohammad Inam, the leading beach wrestler of the world, had a mixed fortune on the opening day of the Beach Wrestling World Series in Constanta, Romania, on Saturday.

Inam, who recently won two back-to-back gold medals in Italy and Greece in this series, went down to Ukraine’s wrestler Oleksii Yakovchuk in his first fight, but made amends when he defeated Ibrahim Yusubov of Azerbaijan in his second fight of the 90 kilogramme competitions to keep his semi-finals hopes alive.

Inam will face Micheil Tsikovani of Greece in his group’s third fight on Sunday (today) which will decide his semi-finals fate.

Inam faced a big issue while reaching Romania and then the competition venue.

He and Zaman Anwar were scheduled to fly out of Faisalabad at 4am on Friday. However, they missed the flight. Then after hectic efforts, only one seat was found in a Turkish airline. Zaman Anwar decided to skip the tour and told Inam that he should proceed to Romania. Inam flew and reached Romania at 6am on Saturday just before the competition.

According to sources, Inam faced huge problems in reaching his hotel. He had not slept for two days and two nights and sources said that he also lost two kilogrammes weight.

Sources said that it was because of the fatigue that Inam lost his first fight.

However, a federation source said that Inam would be fresh on Sunday and would surely qualify for the semi-finals.

Inam told ‘The News’ from Constanta: “I will face a Greek player tomorrow and after I beat him my semi-final fate will be decided as the top two will go to the semis from our group. It is also possible that three wrestlers in our group tie on points and then it will be seen who moves forward. Let’s see what happens,” Inam said.