Mehboob, Bashir flop at Rio

KARACHI: Pakistani athlete Mehboob Ali and shooter Ghulam Mustafa Bashir also fell short of their personal best efforts and faced exit in the competitions of their respective disciplines at the Olympic Games at Rio de Janeiro on Saturday.

Emerging athlete Mehboob, who a few months back equalled national record in the 400m race with a timing of 46.75, clocked 48.37 seconds in Rio to end 46th out of 53 athletes who competed in the heats at the Olympic Stadium. Three of them were disqualified.

Mehboob, who replaced 800m specialist Mohammad Ikram for the Olympic spot following his record run in the National Championship in Quetta in May, finished sixth in his heat, carrying eight athletes. One athlete faced disqualification.

The last athlete who qualified for the next round clocked 45.91. Yahya Mohammad Anas of India was the other athlete from South Asia who finished 31st with a timing of 45.95 seconds.

Meanwhile, shooter Ghulam Mustafa Bashir also failed to qualify for the finals when he fell well short of the qualification score in the 25m rapid fire pistol competitions. Bashir scored 571 (287+284) in the two stage qualification phase held on Friday and Saturday. He ranked 17th in the first stage before finishing 18th in the second out of 26 contestants who featured in the event. Six shooters reached finals from the pack of 26.

Now only athlete Najma Parveen will compete in the 200m on Monday (tomorrow). Shooter Minhal Sohail, judoka Shah Hussain and swimmers Lianna Swan and Haris Bandey have already participated in their respective events. Pakistan has fielded seven players in four disciplines.