GLASGOW: Pakistan’s Afzal Khan saw his Commonwealth Games campaign come to a crushing end as he suffered a comprehensive defeat against Canada’s Gabriel Labrie in the round-of-16 bout of the men’s 65kg boxing category at the SEC Centre on Sunday.
The Pakistani orthodox, who had registered the country’s first win of this edition of the Games, was outclassed by the Canadian across all three rounds, with all five judges scoring the bout in Labrie’s favour.
In the pool, Pakistan’s swimmers endured another day of disappointment as Jehanara Nabi and Hamza Asif both failed to advance from their respective heats at the Tollcross International Swimming Centre.
The 22-year-old Jehanara finished second in her heat of the women’s 100m freestyle with a time of 1:00.36 — just 0.05 seconds behind Sri Lanka’s Minagi Rupesinghe.
However, her effort was nearly five seconds slower than the 55.83 that earned the final semi-final berth, leaving her comfortably adrift of the top-16 cut.
Hamza, 20, won his heat of the men’s 50m breaststroke with a time of 29.63, but the victory proved hollow as the 28.11 posted by the last qualifier left the young Pakistani short of the semi-final mark.
In lawn bowls, Mohammad Ayub Qureshi registered his first win of the Games on Sunday, defeating Rajnesh Prasad of Fiji 2-0 with identical scores of 7-5 and 8-5.
On Saturday, Pakistan’s boxers had something to celebrate when 20-year-old Qudratullah delivered a unanimous decision win over Fiji’s Jone Davule in the men’s 60kg bout.
The southpaw’s composed performance secured him a place in the round-of-16.
Fighting in a southpaw stance, Qudratullah landed a clean left-right at the start and timed his punches effectively throughout. He took the first round on four of five judges’ cards after Davule failed to find an opening.
The Pakistani started the second strongly with good combinations, but his job was made easier when Davule was docked a point for persistent rule violation of keeping his head down. Davule won the round on three cards but the penalty left him needing a huge third.
More trouble followed as Davule was sanctioned again for the same offence, and with another point docked, only a knockout could save him.
The boxers spent most of the final round in clinch, with Qudratullah doing enough to parry the shots and secure the win to applause from the SEC Centre crowd.
Team manager and Pakistan Boxing Federation secretary Major Irfan Younis praised the young boxer’s performance, highlighting the progress being made in the country’s boxing programme.
“We are happy with the performance of our boxer. There is a sense of achievement as well that we are on the right track,” Irfan said. “We are undergoing development in our boxing and it is showing in the results. We are in the right direction and we will keep working,” he added.
Published in Dawn, July 27th, 2026
