Asian Indoor Games: Pakistan women wrestlers continue to impress

Beenish, Maryam bag bronze medals in -70kg, -50kg events respectively

KARACHI: Pakistan women wrestlers continued their impressive form on their debut as they bagged two more bronze medals at the Asian Indoor and Martial Arts Games in Ashgabat.

Beenish Khan took the medal in the -70kg freestyle women's belt wrestling event as she defeated Tajikistan's Mariya Sedunova 3-0 in her first match, while Maryam outplayed Philippines Grace Loberane 2-1 in the -50kg event to get another bronze medal. Both athletes fought two bouts and lost their second bout to end up with a bronze on their wrestling debut.

Meanwhile, Muhammad Basit also took a bronze medal in freestyle +100kg event after defeating Uzbekistan's Sherzodjon Rahimov 6-0 and India's Vechita Khesoh 5-0 in the belt wrestling competition.

Earlier Ambreen Masih became the first Pakistani woman to win an international medal in the wrestling event. She won the medal in traditional wrestling competition.

Ambreen, Beenish and Maryam all have been judo players before.

While the Pakistan Wrestling Federation (PWF) plans to expand their female wrestling program to national level, they said that they are proud of the achievement by the debutantes.

Meanwhile, the Pakistan Judo Federation (PJF) official Masood Ahmed added that it is a big compliment for Pakistan to have such versatile players who can make their place in different sports.

"They didn't have judo at the Asian Indoor Games," Ahmed told The Express Tribune. "But it is amazing that this doesn't stop our women from competing and challenging their abilities, and not just limiting themselves to one sport. However, yes we would need our South Asian Champion medallists back at judo. However, with wrestling they have certainly proved that other women can also do it. We are proud of them."

Pakistan's has one gold, two silvers and nine bronze medals now and have slumped to the 13th place on medal table out of the 24 countries participating in different disciplines at the Asian Indoor and Martial Arts Games.

On the other hand Pakistan's Muhammad Sajjad also began his campaign at the Billiards and Snooker 6-Red event with a 5-4 win against Jordan's Sharafaldean Riyad Nahar AlMaitaah.