Shah misses Budapest Grand Prix, set to miss Zagreb event

KARACHI: Pakistan’s premier judoka and 2020 Tokyo Olympics prospect Shah Hussain missed Budapest Grand Prix and will also miss Zagreb Grand Prix to be held later this month due to financial issues.

Both the events serve as Olympic qualifiers and missing both these events will dent the Olympian’s qualifying chance for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.

The Budapest Grand Prix will conclude on Sunday (today), while Zagreb Grand Prix will be held in Zagreb, Croatia, from July 26 to 28.

However, a source in the Pakistan Judo Federation (PJF) told ‘The News’ that Shah along with Qaiser Afridi, Tokyo-based Amina Toyoda and a couple of other Pakistan-based judokas will be fielded in the World Championships to be held from August 25-31 in Tokyo.

On May 21, 2019, PJF had written a letter to the federal minister for Inter-provincial Coordination (IPC) Dr Fehmida Mirza and had informed the minister about its plan to focus on Shah, Qaiser and Amina for Olympic seats.

The IPC then wrote a letter to PJF on June 17 in which the ministry had sought complete plans from the federation.

This correspondent learnt that the federation had already forwarded plan to the ministry and is waiting for its response.

In a bid to earn an Olympic seat, a judoka has to feature in most of the Olympic qualifying events.

Shah, who is the first fighter in the history of Pakistan to have featured in Olympics, needs maximum participation in Olympic qualifiers if he wants to ensure his second successive participation in the world’s most prestigious event to be held in Tokyo next summer.

A senior official of PJF still hopes that Shah will be able to bring himself in top 50 if he featured in at least four events this year.

“No doubt missing a couple of events this month will affect his overall position in the end but I am confident that if he features in at least four events this year then he can improve his ranking. Next year too he will have to participate in more qualifiers and hopefully he will be in a very good position at the end of qualification period next year,” the official said.

Shah had qualified on continental quota in 2016 for Rio Olympics.

Meanwhile, the PJF does not plan to field him in Brasilia Grand Prix to be held in Brazil from October 6-8. However, the PJF confirmed on Saturday that he along with a few others will feature in the Abu Dhabi Grand Slam (October 24-26), Perth Oceania Open (November 3-4), Osaka Grand Slam (November 22-24) and Asian Open (November 29 to December 2).

The PJF will provide plan for 2020 to the government after checking the schedule for next year’s qualifying events.

Both Shah and Amina are undergoing training in their adopted hometown Tokyo.

The qualifying phase of judo spans over a couple of years and in the end the fighters are allocated seats on the basis of world and continental rankings.

Besides judo Pakistan is contesting for Olympic seats in hockey, karate, taekwondo, weightlifting, shooting, athletics and wrestling.