March 11, 2007	Sunday	Safar 21, 1428

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KARACHI, March 10: Pakistan’s seven-member boxing team returned without fetching any laurels from Al-Fajr boxing tournament on Saturday with their coach putting the defeat to recent ouster of Anwar Chowdhry from the International Boxing Association (AIBA).

Rustam Baloch, the coach of the Pakistan side, didn’t mince any words in saying that Chowdhry’s presence at AIBA prompted Pakistan to win medals at international tournaments earlier.

“Now what should I tell you about the reason why we failed to win any medal at Al-Far tournament. I think it is because Prof Chowdhry is no more the AIBA president. Maybe we failed because of that reason,” Rustam reluctantly told Dawn upon his return from Iran where the event was held from March 2 to 8.

“I can’t say Prof Chowdhry manipulated results in Pakistan’s favour when he was AIBA chief. I can only say that since he was the president until last year, he had great influence and respect worldwide because of which we may have won medals in the past.”

Rustam was, however, at loss of words when asked how respect of an individual could win medals for any country at an invitational tournament.

Asked if Chowdhry had lost respect or influence now after being dethroned as AIBA president, the coach didn’t agree but admitted he might have lost his “influence” which he enjoyed during his 20-year tenure as AIBA president.

Chowdhry, also the Pakistan Boxing Federation (PBF) chairman, and former godfather of international amateur boxing, was dethroned by Taiwan’s Ching-Kuo Wu last November.

Since his unceremonious ouster from the world body, Pakistan have been facing an unprecedented slump. Pakistan, who won the gold through featherweight Mehrullah, three silver and a bronze at 2002 Busan Asian Games, returned without any medal from last December’s Asian Games in the Qatari capital of Doha.

Apart from the corruption charges and violation of AIBA financial rules, Chowdhry has also been charged by several boxing officials with manipulating results to favour Pakistani pugilists at various tournaments at home and abroad.

AIBA secretary-general Caner Doganeli has also blamed Pakistan’s pathetic performance at Doha Games on Chowdhry’s corruption which, according to him, was exposed after he was deposed as AIBA chief.

The boxers who took part in the Iranian event are light-flyweight Jibran Munna, lightweight Shoaib Rasheed, bantamweight Abid Jan, featherweight Afzal Qambrani, light-welterweight Zakir Hussain, light-heavyweight Khairan, and super-heavyweight Faizullah.