INCHEON: Boxers Aamir Khan and Mohaibullah, along with the men’s and women’s table tennis teams and wrestler Bilal Hussain Awan crashed out on a disappointing Sunday at the Asian Games for Pakistan.
Both Aamir and Mohib lost on points in their round-of-16 bouts in the light welterweight and light flyweight categories respectively at the Seonhak Gymnasium to follow team-mate Nadir Baloch in making their exit from the competition.
Aamir lost to Japan’s Kawachi Masatsugu 3-0 in the 64kg category while Mohib’s progress was stalled by Birzhan Zhakypov of Kazakhstan by the same scoreline to leave Pakistan’s boxing hopes resting on debutant Sanaullah and Common-wealth Games silver medallist Mohammad Waseem.
At the Suwon Gymnasium, Pakistan’s table tennis teams didn’t fare any better.
The men’s team were hammered 3-0 by Taiwan for their second straight defeat in Group ‘C’ with their second straight defeat putting them out of the running for a place in the next round.
Mohammad Rameez mustered just eight points before going down 4-11, 3-11, 1-11 to An Chien Chen before captain Asim Qureshi lost 3-11, 5-11, 8-11 by Chieh Hung Chiang while Saleem Abbas lost the final rubber to Sheng Sheng Huang.
Pakistan, though, ended their preliminary campaign with two wins after they beat Maldives 3-0 in their final group game.
The women’s team fared even worse, racking up just one win in four matches which incidentally also came against Maldives in their final Group ‘C’ match after Japan had routed them 3-0.
Bilal’s hopes of reaching the semi-finals in the 97kg men’s freestyle wrestling event, meanwhile, were ended by Magomed Musaev with the Kyrgyz winning their fight on technical superiority after the first round at the Duwon Gymnasium.
The country’s lone cyclist Mohammad Shakeel also had a dismal day when he failed to finish in the men’s road race, ending rock-bottom in 41st place in the five-lap race at the Songdo Course.
The only highlight of the day as far as Pakistan were concerned was the kabbadi team’s 51-30 win over Thailand in their opening Group ‘A’ match at the Songdo Global University Gymnasium.
After a dominant first session in which Pakistan raced into a 219-9 lead, Thailand came back strongly in the second-half before losing 21-22.
In the qualification matches for 13th-16th place in the volleyball competition, meanwhile, Pakistan got off to a good start with Ajmal Khan starring in a 3-0 win over Turkmenistan.
Published in Dawn, September 29th, 2014