Boxer Naqeeb joins camp only on Thursday

Big lapse

KARACHI: Gutsy boxer Naqeebullah of WAPDA would not be able to make a place in the national squad for the Asian Championship and Islamic Games as he reported for the training camp in Islamabad only on last Thursday.

Insiders told ‘The News’ that Naqeeb, who had won gold in the 56 kilogramme in the last National Championship in Karachi in 2015, had not been informed about the camp by his department in time. “He came only on last Thursday. He told us that he did not know about the camp. His colleagues had been in the camp from the very start,” an insider told this correspondent.

“As Naqeeb has not trained he will not be able to reach his peak form. We are short of time. He will miss both the events. It’s unfortunate as we have no other boxer in this weight category,” the source said.

This correspondent tried several times to contact the Pakistan Boxing Federation (PBF) president Khalid Mehmood and secretary Col Nasir Tung but they did not receive the calls.

It is pertinent to mention here that the two officials were only recently elected in elections held in Peshawar.

The Asian Boxing Championship will be held in Tashkent from April 30 to May 7.

The Islamic Games will be hosted by Azerbaijan in Baku from May 12-22.

Meanwhile, Pakistan Boxing Federation (PBF) plans to hold trials for picking the squads for the target assignments from April 18-20 at the Pakistan Sports Complex, Islamabad.

As many as 21 boxers are training in Islamabad. Besides, those 21 who had been training in Karachi for the last few months on Friday moved to the federal capital to join the camp there.

Meanwhile, a source in the Pakistan camp said that it was expected that eight boxers would be picked for the Islamic Games and six for the continental championship.

National pugilists are training for around six hours a day.

Pakistan has been struggling in boxing for a long time. Since the former AIBA and PBF chief Professor Anwar Chowdhry left the scene, boxing standard has been going down.

It will be a testing year for the newly-elected PBF set up under Khalid Mehmood.

Barring Mohammad Waseem, who has now turned professional, during the last six years not a single Pakistani boxer could win any international medal.

Waseem, who is now two-time WBC world silver flyweight champion, won silver in the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow and bronze in the Asian Games in Incheon the same year.