Shah helps Pakistan open CWG account with bronze

Judoka beats South African Thomas-Laszlo Breytenbach; badminton players also make progress

KARACHI:

Judoka Shah Hussain Shah grabbed Pakistan their first medal at the 2022 Commonwealth Games after defeating South Africa’s Thomas-Laszlo Breytenbach to win the bronze medal fight, as other athletes also made progress in Birmingham on Wednesday.

The 29-year-old kept his promise to win a medal for Pakistan, when he outplayed Breytenbach 10-0 in two minutes and 51 seconds in the -90kg event.

He earlier lost to Australia’s Harrison Cassar in the quarterfinal, then he subsequently qualified for the repechage fight, in which he got a bye and then set the fixture with Breytenbach.

Shah had been a Commonwealth Games silver-medallist in the 2014 edition.

Read more: Pakistan’s Nooh plans one better than bronze at CWG

Shah is based in Japan where he trains and lives with his family. He also represented Pakistan at the Tokyo Olympics and in the 2016Rio de Janeiro Games.

He is the son of Pakistan’s legendary boxer Hussain Shah, who won Pakistan the first and only medal in boxing at the 1988 Seoul Games.

Not bad, badminton

The badminton players had a good start in their round of 64 singles matches too.

Ghazala Siddique defeated Falkland Island’s Vicky Chater 2-0, Muhammad Irfan Saeed Bhatti defeated Zambia’s Chong Mulenga 2-0 and Mahoor Shehzad outplayed Guyana’s Priyanna Devirani Ramdhani 2-0.

Meanwhile, Ghazala and Mahoor lost their women’s doubles match against Australia 2-0 earlier in the day.

Fahad Khwaja began his campaign in the table tennis successfully as well with a 11-5, 11-9, 11-7, 11-6 win against Guyana’s Christopher Franklin in the men’s singles group 15, match one.

Faiza Zafar and Nasir Iqbal won the round of 32 squash match against Sri Lankan opponents 2-0, much like Amna Fayyaz and Tayyab Aslam who defeated Barbados duo 2-0 in their match.

In other events, Qaisar Afridi lost his round of 16 fight in -100kg judo, while Hanzala Dastgir Butt finished ninth at the 109kg weightlifting event.

Pak women’s cricket team lost to Australia by 44 runs in Group A preliminary match.