Monday was not Pakistan’s day in the ongoing Asian Games as the Green Shirts failed to win in any competition except doubles tennis.
Pakistani athletes faced defeats in taekwondo, shooting, women’s cricket and swimming.
Pakistan’s journey ended in the 10m air rifle shooting discipline after Ghufran Adil, Aqib Latif and Zeeshan Fareed failed to qualify in the top 8 for the next round.
Ghufran finished 31st with 622.7 points, Aaqib finished 44th with 616.7 and Zeehshan finished 53rd with 608.4 points.
Pakistan, as a whole, finished 14th with a total of 1874.8 points in the 10m air rifle competition.
In another shooting, Pakistan’s G.M. Bashir, who started well in the first round of the qualification phase and secured eighth position, was out of the top 4 race after only getting 13 points in the second round.
On the other hand, not a single Pakistani swimmer could make it to the next round.
In Women’s 50m Backstroke heat, Pakistan’s Fatima Lotia finished her race in 35.38 seconds, she was 7.79 seconds behind the last swimmer who qualified for the next round. Her rank was 27th out of 29.
In Women’s 200m Freestyle, Jehanara Nabi finished 9 seconds behind the last qualifying swimmer and was ranked 17th out of 23.
In Women’s 200m Individual Medley, Jehanara was ranked 18th out of 20.
Meanwhile, in Men’s 50m Freestyle, Ahmed Durrani finished 35th and Hamza Anwar finished 38th.
In Men’s 100m Breaststroke, Hamza was ranked 27th out of 28.
However, Pakistan faced their biggest setback in taekwondo when Haroon Khan, who was expected to win a medal, lost to Kazakhstan’s Aidin Altybaev 2-1 in the first round.
Competing in the 58kg category, Haroon won the first round 10-5 and looked in good position to win the tie.
But Altybaev’s comeback in the second round made it difficult for the Pakistani as he ended up losing 10-9 after a close encounter.
The two went head-to-head once again in the third round, but Altybaev performed astoundingly in the last round and clinched three points, which ultimately turned out to be the difference as he won the third round 15-12.
Faizan Lakhani Faizan Lakhani is Deputy Editor (Sports) at Geo News.
