Plan in place to send Judokas to Hungary

Pakistan federation desperately wants athletes to improve

KARACHI: In the aftermath of Pakistani judokas' sub-par showing at the Asian Senior Judo Championships in Hong Kong — where both Qaisar Afridi and Babar Hussain lost in the opening round and even Olympian Shah Hussain Shah settled for a lowly fifth-place finish — the Pakistan Judo Federation (PJF) has decided to send its athletes to Hungary for training.

In particular, Shah's -100kg semi-final defeat to South Korea’s Kim Hyeoncheol and another in the fight for third place at the hands of Mongolia’s Janchivdorj Bunddorj were major disappointments for PJF Vice-President Masood Ahmed, who feels national judokas need to train more and better.

“We need to work on our athletes,” Ahmed told The Express Tribune. “Shah has the ability, and the Mongolian judoka he lost to wasn't better than him.

"We are not very happy with the overall result, and this performance only shows that we need to send our athletes abroad to train.

"Shah also needs to train in a different environment as the Japanese techniques he's accustomed to are different from the ones used in Europe, where game is faster.”

Before his twin defeats, Shah had looked impressive in the tournament, defeating China’s Jun Zhang in a fight that lasted merely a minute and 18 seconds before ousting Tajikistan’s Saidzhalil Saidov to reserve his place among the final four.

Sixteen-year-old Qaisar, meanwhile, battled with Japan’s Sotaro Fujiwara for four minutes in their -81kg matchup but lost nonetheless, although he can take comfort in the fact that Fujiwara went all the way and won gold.

Teammate Babar Hussain fared no better, losing in the opening round of the -66 competition.

Pakistan's misery was compounded in the team event, where it lost 4-1 to Iran, although they were two players short in the usual five-player format.

“Our judokas tried their best; Qaisar was Fujiwara’s toughest competitor in the competition, while in the team event we only managed to field three players instead of five," said Ahmed.

"But we've noticed that it is essential for our players to train at the International Judo Federation (IJF) training camp in Hungary. This way they will prepare for the World Championships in August and also get to practice with judokas from around the world.”