KARACHI, May 5: Five more Pakistani boxers will be battling to seek Olympic berths at third qualifying tournament which gets under way at KPT Sports Complex from Thursday.
Flyweight Shoaib Rasheed, featherweight Sohail Baloch, light-welterweight Faisal Kareem, welterweight Nisar Ahmad and middleweight Ahmad Ali Khan will represent Pakistan in a bid to book tickets to the Greek city of Athens.
Among the five, the Asian Games silver medallist Ahmad seemed to be more experienced, but it is hard to predict the outcome of the tournament. And the reason is the unexpected but encouraging results at the recent SAF Games in Islamabad that even surprised the Pakistan Boxing Federation (PBF).
All the five pugilists stormed into SAF Games finals to clinch golds, while Pakistan secured 10 top of the line medals altogether in boxing. Three Pakistanis have already confirmed places in the Olympics earlier this year. Light-flyweight Noman Kareem and lightweight Asghar Ali Shah qualified in the Phillipines and bantamweight Meherullah in China.
Surprisingly, Asghar and Meherullah, who were actually light- welterweight and featherweight boxers, were asked to reduce their weights and fielded as lightweight and bantamweight in the Olympic qualifying rounds.
However, the Asian qualifier, which will be the final round for continent's boxers, will not be as easy as the SAF Games were since it is being expected to be participated by a large number of countries.
Pakistani boxers are likely to get a stiff resistance since other participants will also be fighting hard to get a place in Olympics as it will be their last opportunity to qualify from Asia. Organizers are anticipating at least 28 countries in the competition which are:
Afghanistan, China, Chinese Taipei, India, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Japan, Kuwait, Kazakhstan, South Korea, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia, Malaysia, Nepal, Palestine, the Philippines, Qatar, Sri Lanka, Syria, Tajikistan, Thailand, Turkmenistan, UAE, Uzbekistan and Yemen.
Saudi Arabia, Lebanon and Vietnam were unlikely to take part, while North Korea would not be able to vie because of train crash in the country, organizers said. The tournament is being contested in nine weight categories and 18 boxers will qualify for the August's Olympics to complete the Asian quota of 62 pugilists.
