17-Jan-2012
THE NEWS
Alam Zeb Safi
KARACHI: Pakistan’s boxing camp for the Asian Qualifying round of Olympics in Astana is yet to gain any momentum as only a couple of boxers and a coach have joined it.
Ten probable boxers were invited to the camp, scheduled to kick-start on January 9, but so far only Niamatullah and Nadir Baloch have reached the federal capital along with the coach Majeed Brohi, sources told The News on Monday.
Head coach Zaigham Maseel is busy preparing Navy’s boxers for the Inter-Services competitions. Another coach Arshad Hussain is supervising Army’s boxing camp for the same competitions, sources said.
Four of the ten boxers are from the armed forces: Ghulam Mustafa and Zulqarnain (Army), Mohammad Nisar (Navy) and Niamatullah (PAF).
It is understandable if boxers from the armed forces are preparing for Inter-Services slots, but eyebrows have been raised by the absence of coaches who were assigned the task of preparing a national team for a very important assignment.
Being a head coach, it was the responsibility of Zaigham to prefer national assignment and press the boxers for joining the camp in time, sources in the boxing circles say. Pakistan’s top boxer Mohammad Waseem, Qadir Khan, Nadir Baloch, SM Asif, Haider Riaz and Mohammad Hussain are the other boxers who are yet to report for the camp.
Britain-born Haroon Khan is not included in the list of probable boxers, but an official of the Pakistan Boxing Federation (PBF) said his case for the assignment would be considered.
And as Waseem wants to represent the country in the Asian Qualifying round in the 52kg, Haroon will not be able to take part.
If he wants to participate in the qualifiers then he will have to reduce his weight and will have to appear in the 49kg.
“I am going to contact the heads of the sports departments of those boxers who have not yet reported for the camp and will give them a deadline. If any boxer did not follow our instructions and ignored the camp any further, he would be dropped,” Ali Akbar Shah, the national selector, told The News here on Monday.
“We gave clear-cut instructions to all boxers to report for the camp on January 9. If no one is interested to report for the camp then we will not send any one to Kazakhstan for the qualifiers,” Shah said. Pakistan failed to clear the first hurdle when its boxers could not click in the World Championship in Baku last year, which also served as qualifiers for Olympics |
