KARACHI: Pakistan will begin their Asian Wrestling Championship journey when Inayatullah and Mohammad Bilal flex their muscles in their respective weight categories in Astana, Kazakhstan, on Thursday (today).
Inayat, the Youth Olympics bronze medallist, will lock horns in the 70kg category with Morteza Ghiasi Cheka of Iran. Bilal will face Almaz Smanbekov of Kyrgyzstan in the 57kg weight category.
Nouman Zaka will meet Singapore's Weng Chow in the 86kg weight category on Friday (tomorrow).
The country's key wrestler Mohammad Inam is not featuring in the continental event as he is attending a coaching course in Budapest, Hungary.
The participation in the Asian Championship is very important as only those nations will be able to take part in the World Championship in September in Serbia who feature in the continental event. The global event will also serve as Qualifiers for the 2024 Paris Olympics.
The wrestlers mostly trained on their own in their respective cities as there was no government-funded centralised camp as there used to be in the past for such a major event.
The Pakistan Sports Board (PSB) had set up a wrestling camp but surprisingly stopped it on February 9 and that broke the whole preparation tempo.
Due to lack of support from the government, Pakistan Wrestling Federation (PWF) involved Lahore’s local wrestlers for sparring purposes for around 25 days but it was not too helpful as they needed top-ranked boys for sparring with the Astana-bound wrestlers and it could have been made possible only in a state-funded camp.
“Yes, definitely the desired training could not be done,” coach Ghulam Fareed told ‘The News’.
“The boys trained together for around 25 days in Lahore besides having done workout in their own cities. You know when you don’t have tough sparring partners then you cannot train perfectly.
“I requested the PSB to put ten to 15 top wrestlers in the camp but it did not,” the coach lamented. “There should have been four to five months camp for the Asian Championship."
Our Correspondent