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| November 11, 2003 | Tuesday | Ramazan 15, 1424 |
Shoaib and Sohail named for Russian trip
KARACHI, Nov 10: Pakistan Boxing Federation (PBF) on Monday named two underachievers among the group of six for the training tour to Russia for SAF Games and Olympic qualifying rounds.
While the top pugilists, Noman Kareem, Meherullah and Asghar Ali Shah and Ahmad Ali, were expected to make the trip to Russia, unimpressive Shoaib Rasheed and Sohail Baloch, were the surprise selection.
Flyweight Rasheed had lost to Akhtar Pervaiz in the Sept 10 to 12 national ranking tournament quarterfinals organized here to select players for the third Green Hill Cup international tournament held here from Oct 8 to 12.
However, the president of the PBF, Anwar Chowdhry, contended since Shoaib had enormous reach, the Cuban coach Reinaldo Alveraz Ulicia and the three Pakistan coaches, had given their nod.
“That boy (Shoaib) has very good height, therefore, all the four coaches have recommended him strongly,” he said.
Interestingly, Shoaib, despite enjoying better reach against his diminutive Sri Lankan opponent Anurudha Rathnayake, was thrashed before losing 22-7 and crashing out in the opening round of the Green Hill Cup.
As for Sohail, the featherweight boxer did not even take part in the national ranking contest which was held for the selection of squad for international event in Karachi.
The Wapda boxer was, however, fielded at the Karachi competition, but the best he could do was to grab the bronze after losing to Hungary’s Kertesl Henrik 23-11 in the semifinals.
“Sohail had a problem that his most of punches did not land on target. But the coach says he has improved,” the PBF official said.
Chowdhry said Asghar and Meher would revert to their new weight categories after fighting in the previous weight divisions at recently-concluded Afro-Asian Games in India.
Asghar, originally a light-welterweight will now train in lightweight, while featherweight Meherullah in bantamweight. It will be third time the two boxers will change their weight categories.
“I had a pep talk with them (Asghar and Meher) and asked them to decided the weight category for themselves. They have opted to reduce their weights and fight in bantamweight and lightweight,” the PBF chief said.
It would not be out of context to mention Meherullah, before leaving for the Afro-Asian Games, had categorically stated frequent changes in weight category were hampering his performance as he felt sluggish and weak after reducing his weight.
Chowdhry felt frustrated on the performance of the Pakistan squad which participated in the Afro-Asian Games. Two of the four boxers returned empty-handed, while Ahmad got the silver and Asghar managed a light-welterweight bronze.
The programme released by the PBF says the four boxers — Shoaib, Sohail, Meher and Asghar — leave for Moscow on Nov 17, while Army boxers light-flyweight Noman Kareem and middleweight Ahmad Ali join them on Dec 15 after taking part in World CISM Games being organized in Italy from Dec 1 to 15.
The six pugilists return on Jan 8 to travel to Philippines for the Asian championship from Jan 12 which also serves as first Olympic qualifying round.
“We have decided to field 11 boxers in the first round. But if five of our boxers qualify for the Athens Games, we will not enter more in the second and third rounds,” Chowdhry said.
Four or five boxers will also go on a training tour to Kazakhstan before the SAF Games that start from March 29 in Islamabad.
The PBF official said a national ranking tournament would also held to give an opportunity to the boxers to show their worth for the future assignments.
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