Despite generosity from the usually ignorant high-ups in Islamabad, Pakistan failed to realize its potential in Athens
Like our dismal showing in Olympic hockey, the performance of the five Pakistani pugilists, turned out to be shockingly disappointing as all of them suffered humiliating defeats in the first and second rounds of various weight categories of the boxing competition at the XXVIII Athens Olympic.
The Athens performance of our boxers can, perhaps, be considered the worst ever. And that too when full cooperation had been extended to the boxing authorities in the country. The Pakistan Amateur Boxing Federation had claimed that if it got the required funding for training of the boxers, they would be capable of winning medals at Athens. Islamabad obliged and the PBF was given one crore rupees in pursuit of that goal. However, as things stand now, Pakistan is returning home without any medal. It was Prof. Anwar Chaudhry, chief of the PBF and President of AIBA who met and convinced Islamabad’s sports and military bureaucracies to extended huge grant to the boxing federation. He, personally, was of the opinion that a shortage of funding was a major obstacle in our search for success.
The current boxing squad was one of the best prepared squads ever. We competed in a good number of pre-Olympic tournaments and six boxers managed to qualify for Athens. However, Pakistan was dealt a shocking blow when SAF Games gold medalist, Noman Karim was banned for a year after he tested positive for a performance enhancing drug. Our ignorant boxing authorities made a further mockery of the issue when they came out with a statement that the banned Noman Karim had a chance of winning a medal in Athens! But Noman wasn’t the only case. Three SAF gold medalists, who competed in Athens boxing, were warned for smoking marijuana. And then three weightlifters also tested positive and were banned.
Dope testing was carried out for the first time in this year’s SAF Games and the only country that had athletes that tested positive for banned substances was Pakistan.
No doubt Pakistani boxers are good at the SAF Games. They are even good at the Asian level. But the Olympics, that too harbouring an ambition of winning a medal there, now that’s a different proposition. Pakistan has been availing the services of Cuban coaches for the past two decades. And yet, we have not been able to make the best of this advantage.
Only once has Pakistan secured a medal at the Olympics. And that was when Lyari-born Hussain Shah from Karachi, then serving in the KESC, brought home a bronze in the 1988 Seoul games, sixteen years ago. Poor and uncared, Hussain Shah had turned to boxing to meet his family’s financial needs. In 56 years of competing in the Olympics, this is Pakistan’s highest point in boxing. A bronze medal is awarded to the beaten semi-finalists and Hussain secured it when his efforts to reach the final fell through.
In Athens our ace boxers Ashgar Ali Shah and Meharullah won the first round of lightweight and bantamweight, by beating Volodymyr Kravets (21-17) and Aibek Abdymomumov of Kyrgyzstan by (36-22) respectively to enter the second round. However, that was the end of their run.
Meherullah suffered his worst defeat in the second match at the hands of Cuba’s Guillermo Rigondea when the referee stopped the fight in the third round. Asghar Ali Shah too was thoroughly beaten (9-24) by Cuban Mario Cesar Kindelan as the fight ended in the third round. Both the Cuban boxers were Sydney gold medalists and their victory was not surprising. But what is disappointing is that neither Asghar nor Meharullah took the fight to the full distance of four rounds. Our other two hopefuls, Sohail Baloch (lightweight) and Faisal Karim (light welterweight) were out in the first round.
Sohail suffered heavy punishment and referee stopped the fight in the second round to declare Uzbekistan’s Bekzod Khidiro the victor. Romanian boxer Ionut Gheorghe turned ruthless in handling Faisal Karim before entering the second round.
The last boxer Ahmed Ali Khan was whipped by Kazakhstan’s Gennadiy Golovkin in the second round of middleweight in a completely one sided affair.
All the boxers had been under coaching and training for a long time under the expert handling of a Cuban coach. Usually, our federation bosses attribute the failure of our boxers on a tough draw and there is every possibility the same plea will be repeated when the boxers return from Athens. But the failure of boxers to take the fight to the full distance, except Ahmed Ali Khan, showed they lacked the required fitness as well as the fighting techniques that left much to be desired.
Like any other world class boxers, we have to raise the level of physical fitness and also fighting skill at the international level without which we cannot achieve Olympic glory. The Federal Sports Ministry should act to hold enquiry for the causes of abject failure of boxers at the Athens Olympic in the wake of the unprecedented grant given to the boxing federation.
Despite generosity from the usually ignorant high-ups in Islamabad, Pakistan failed to realize its potential in Athens 
