Three nations agree to host Pakistan’s boxers

KARACHI: In order to prepare its boxers well for the 2024 Paris Olympics qualifiers, Pakistan Boxing Federation (PBF) plans to give some exposure to its leading pugilists.

The PBF president Khalid Mehmood recently attended the extraordinary congress of the international boxing association (IBA) in Armenia and made efforts to manage some training opportunities for his top fighters.

“Recently I attended the IBA meeting and also held talks with some nations. Iran, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan have agreed to host our boxers and coaches for training. We will try to send the leading boxers to these countries,” Khalid told 'The News' in an interview on Wednesday.

“It would be a huge thing if they trained there for a couple of months. We will try to send them in batches to these countries,” he said.

Khalid said the PBF's main focus would be to prepare the lot for the continental qualifying round which would be the Asian Games slated to be held in China in September and October next year.

“Definitely our main focus will be the Asian Qualifiers. If our boxers didn't click there it would be difficult for them to perform in the world qualifying rounds,” said Khalid, also secretary of the Pakistan Olympic Association (POA).

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) Executive Board recently made some alteration in the qualifying pathway for boxing following consultation with the world's leading boxing experts. There used to be two qualifying rounds, the continental and the world. In the new qualifying pathway, there will be continental qualifying round and two world qualifying rounds which will be held in 2024.

Asian Games now will serve as Asian Qualifiers which will provide the fighters of Asia an opportunity to make a direct cut for the 2024 Paris Olympics.

A task force has been formed to conduct the Asian Games boxing event. IOC has made it clear that IBA will have no role with in the Olympic boxing qualifiers and the boxing event in Paris 2024 Games as happened during the Tokyo Olympics.

Pakistan has a bunch of fighters who can press for Olympics seats if properly prepared.

Khalid said that PBF plans to field three boxers in the Asian Championship which will be held in Jordan from October 30 to November 13.

“Yes, we plan to field three or four boxers in the Asian Championship. All the top boxers are currently training in their respective departments,” he said.

Khalid said that efforts would also be made to send three or four coaches with the pugilists abroad so that they could also learn.

He made it clear that the PBF cannot afford hiring the services of a foreign coach.

“You know without state help it is not possible to hire a foreign coach. You know we hold national events and also field our boxers in international events without any state support. Hiring a foreign coach at this stage is beyond my capacity,” Khalid said.

It is pertinent to mention here that Pakistan last featured in Olympic boxing in the 2004 Athens Games.

Mohammad Waseem came close to earning an Olympic seat but he failed to so when he fell in the quarter-final of the Asian Qualifiers for 2012 London Olympics held in Astana.