ISLAMABAD: Iranian coach Sajjad Kazmi is set to join the Pakistan’s national training camp in Islamabad to prepare the athletes for major international events, a senior official of the Pakistan Judo Federation (PJF) said on Wednesday.

“I’ve just talked to Sajjad, he was at the Pakistan Embassy in Tehran to obtain his visa. Hopefully, he will be in Islamabad in a day or so to start training our athletes,” PJF vice-president Masood Ahmed told APP.

“Our past experience with Sajjad has been very good. Hence, we’ve hired him once again for the key international events.”

Sajjad, who had a five-year coaching stint with Pakistan from 2012 to 2016, is a Black Belt 6 DAN.

“We have a very hectic calendar year for our judokas who will be featuring in a host of important competitions. Initially, we’ve hired his [Sajjad’s] services at least for a year,” Masood said.

Pakistan’s judokas are scheduled to participate in this year’s Commonwealth Games, Asian Games and the Islamic Solidarity Games.

According to Masood, during Sajjad’s last stint with Pakistan, the judokas exhibited great performance.

Sajjad honed the skills of Qaiser Afridi, Pakistan’s top-notch judoka, who is set to represent the country at this year’s Commonwealth Games in Birmingham in -100kg division along with Olympian Shah Hussain Shah who will be competing in the -90kg category for the first time.

The Pakistan Sports Board (PSB) had arranged a one-month camp in Quetta to provide training to the national judokas, the PJF vice-president added.

“But today [Wednesday] we shifted that camp to the Pakistan Sports Complex in Islamabad where 25 judokas will train under Sajjad and other national coaches,” Masood stated.

“After three weeks, we are planning to move the camp to Abbottabad.”

Masood continued, “Our first focus is the Commonwealth Games. Shah and Afridi’s participation in these Games is confirmed. But we also want to field at least two more judokas in this event — Hamid Ali (+100kg) of Pakistan Navy and Haseeb Mustafa (-81kg) of the Higher Education Commission. In this regard, we’ve written to the Pakistan Olympic Association as well as the PSB.”

Hamid is a gold medallist of the 2019 South Asian Games staged in Kathmandu, while Haseeb is another bright prospect, who has consistently exhibited his class at the national level.

Published in Dawn, May 12th, 2022