Pakistan taekwondo team fails to obtain visa

The four athletes were supposed to compete at the Asian Championship starting Friday

KARACHI: The Pakistan taekwondo team was hit by a major setback when the players — three men and one woman — were not granted visas for Chinese Taipei where they were to open their campaign at the Asian Championship on Friday.

However, Pakistan Taekwondo Federation (PTF) President Wasim Ahmed said they would now shift their focus on the World Championship in Russia next month. “We wanted to participate in the Asian Championship,” Ahmed told The Express Tribune. “It would’ve been a good opportunity for our players but we aren’t losing heart over this. We’ll be taking our athletes to the World Championship now so their efforts and preparations don’t go to waste.”

Ahmed said the athletes would have had to travel to Saudi Arabia in order to get visas for Chinese Taipei which was not feasible. “It’s very hard for us to get the visas like this, so we’ve decided to skip that tournament altogether.”

He added that the national camp will continue for a month for the world event. “We’ll be conducting trials for the World Championship now and we’ll have the names in a couple of days,” said Ahmed. “The Asian Championship was a good event, but the World Championship is the biggest competition in sport.”

Scotland-based Atief Arshad and Denmark-based Sami Latif will also be a part of the squad. Ahmed added that the two foreign-based athletes had competed in the Dutch Open championship recently and therefore their experience would be a major positive.

“We’ll be focusing on the juniors this time for the World Championship selection from the camp,” said Wasim. “We have talented players and we have a few female athletes from Sindh. Our hopes are high for this tournament.”

Meanwhile, another PTF official Iftikhar Ahmad Tabassum said he had requested the Asian Taekwondo Federation to let the Pakistani players get their Chinese Taipei visas on arrival, but that did not work out.

“It’s disappointing for the players because they would’ve benefited from the international exposure,” said Tabassum. “However, we are sending one of our referees Murtaza Bangash to the event, which is the best we can do at the moment.”

 

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