World Judo Championship: Pakistan to send six judokas to Kazakhstan

Federation hopes to receive NOCs from the govt before August 20

KARACHI: Pakistan will field at least six athletes at the World Judo Championship, scheduled to begin on August 20 in Kazakhstan, with the Pakistan Judo Federation (PJF) pinning its hopes on Shah Hussain Shah for medals.

PJF secretary Masood Ahmed confirmed that the squad comprises four male athletes including Shah and Wajahat Sarwar along with two other players — who will be shortlisted later — and two females.

“We’ve sent the notification to the government for the tournament,” Masood told The Express Tribune. “It’s very important for us to compete at the world championship as it will be serving as the 2016 Rio Olympics qualifier, so we are urging the government to issue the NOCs soon.”

Ahmed said that their main hope is 2014 Commonwealth Games 2014 silver-medallist and 2014 Asian Championship bronze-medallist Shah, who also won the All-Universities Championship recently in Tokyo, his current city of residence.

“Shah is definitely the one to look out for,” said Ahmed. “He is in good form as he performed well in the recent tournaments, but we also know that world championships are a tough place to make a mark. He’ll need to bring his best and win at least the opening two matches to improve his ranking.”

The secretary added that Wajahat Sarwar, another Japan-based athlete, will also compete in the -100kg event.

As many as 35 judokas — 20 men and 15 women — are training for the championship at the Pakistan Sports Board camp in Peshawar, with Iranian coach Sajjad Kazemi expected to join shortly.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 9^th, 2015.

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