GOLD COAST: Pakistan’s promising young wrestler Mohammad Bilal overpowered England’s George Ramm by 4-1 to claim a bronze medal in the mens freestyle 57kg wrestling event here on Thursday at the XXI Commonwealth Games being staged at the Carrara Sports Arena.
Bilal, 22 years of age, fought hard against his English opponent and displayed superior acrobatic skills in the bout to win 12-2.
Earlier, Bilal beat Sri Lankan wrestler Charles Fernando in the prequarter-finals. At one stage both were tied in the first round but Bilal, showing strenght and skills, bounce back to overpower Charles Charles 4-3.
However, in the semi-final, Bilal lost to Rahul Aware of India on points, thus setting up the medal bout against George Ramm of England.
It may be mentioned here that Bilal had also won a silver medal in 2016 in Singapore and was the bronze medalist in 2016 in Greco-Roman 59kg weight category.
In the mens freestyle 74kg quarter-finals, Pakistan’s 27-year-old Muhammad Asad Butt beat Oleg Glandkov of Scotland on points 10-3 before leading 8-2 and 2-3 on board, with 3-1 as classification points.
But in the next bout, Asad lost to Kumar Suhail of India on points and Javon Balfour of Canada in the medal fight to end the country’s hopes of earning any more medals in Thursday’s events.
On Friday, however, Pakistan will be looking towards wrestler Umair Ahmad who is in the semi-finals of mens freestyle 97kg weight besides also pinning hopes in Muhammad Inam in the mens freestyle 86kg since he has also reached the quarter-finals. Inam will fight against Jayden Lawrence of Australia.
Tayab Raza of Pakistan is another hope in mens freestyle in 125kg Nordic and will be facing Sinivie Boltic of Nigeria. He will also face Claude Kouamen in the same 125kg weight category of Nardic and will also clash later against Karey Jarvis of Canada.
In the hockey event Pakistan will face Canada in the 7-8 position match on Friday after playing drawn matches in the pool-B against Wales (1-1), England (2-2), India (2-2) and Malaysia (1-1).
In the table tennis event Pakistan’s chances of putting up a fine show vanished when in mixed doubles, Fahad Khawjah and Hareem Ali were beaten by Canada’s Bernadet Antone and Yeurg Justina in the round of 64 by 11-7, 11-6 and 11-6.
Fahad Khawjah, hailing from remote village of Chitral, did show some resistance but overall the Canadian pair dominated the proceedings.
In the women doubles round of 32, Ho Ying and Lyne Koren of Malaysia defeated Hareem Anwar and Fatima Khan of Pakistan 3-0. The scores were11-7, 11-4 and 11-4, in the Men doubles round of 32.
In the mens singles, Sathiyan Gnanasekarum of India beat Muhammad Rameez of Pakistan by 4-0 with scores of 11-5, 11-3, 11-5 and 11-3 in the round of 32.Australia is leading the medal table with 62 gold, 46 silver medals and 46 bronze medal by winning 154 medals overall, followed by England with 28 gold medal, 31 silver medals and 25 bronze medals with an aggregated total of 84 medals.
India is third with 14 gold medals, 7 silver medals and 10 bronze medals by taking 31 medals in all so far while Canada is at no. 4 with 12 gold medal, 27 silver medal and 19 bronze medal by taking 58 overall medals. Pakistan is placed 31st with three bronze medals.
Published in Dawn, April 13th, 2018