08 February 2005	Tuesday	28 Zilhaj 1425

KARACHI, Feb 7: National pugilists have a very hectic schedule ahead this year as they are going to participate in a number of Asian, international and national boxing events, according to the Pakistan Boxing Federation (PBF) Calendar 2005 announced on Monday.

There will be four world level events this year and Pakistan is expected to compete in three of them, which are World Cadet boxing championship at London in September, World junior boxing championship in Greece in October and World boxing championships in China in November. Pakistan will not be participating in World Cup team boxing championship to be held in Moscow.

Pakistan will hold an elite Asian junior boxing championship at the end of June in Karachi. The national boxers will then to take part in the Asian boxing championship in Vietnam in October, and will also participate in Asian Cadet championship to be held in China later this year.

Besides the international events Pakistan will also take part in 10th Chowdhry Cup at Baku in March, YMCA boxing championship at New Delhi also in March and Ahmed Comert boxing championship in Turkey in April.

Pakistan National boxing championship will be held in the first week of March while the PBF is also planning to hold a number of national cadet, junior and senior events to prepare boys for international contests.

Chairman PBF Prof Anwar Chowdhry, also president of AIBA, who recently returned from Liverpool United Kingdom where he attended 100 years of boxing in Olympics celebrations said that at the AIBA meetings held during the celebrations they had made some changes in the judging rules that would be implemented this year.

He informed that to discourage unnecessary and unjust protests during championships the meeting decided to increase protest money from US$100 to US$1000.

He said that the move was initiated in order that the countries willing to lodge protests come forward with genuine cases.

Mr Chowdhry said that they had made amendments to the current Chowdhry Scoring System in order to check the judging flaws.

"Sometimes the points given by judges to the same boxers differed too much. And to stop such practice we have introduced some new rules according to which the judges will be warned if they are committing any mistakes in awarding the points to the boxers during the bout."

Earlier, the boxers were told of mistakes committed by judges after the bout, which led to disputed decisions but now they would be informed during the bout so they could correct themselves in time, he said.

He further disclosed that the AIBA meeting had also taken an important decision according to which eight top boxers from each category from the World boxing championships would qualify for 2008 Olympics.-PPI