Pakistan Wushu team named for Asian Games
Pakistan Times Sports Desk

LAHORE: Pakistan Wushu Federation Thursday named its four member team to take part in the Asian Games Wushu competition being held in Doha in December.

The team comprises, Syed Maratab Ali, Ejaz Butt, Muhammad Bashir and Asghar Ali,said Iftikhar Ali Malik,Secretary, PWF while talking to APP here.

He said the selected team has started its preparation at a camp in Islamabad under the supervision of coach Rana Abdul Majeed and assistant coach Aamir Shahzad Butt.

PWF official said the team was named on the basis of performance of players in the trials and in the 10th South Asia Games held in Colombo last month where Pakistan won 2 gold, 4 silver and 1 bronze in the Chinese style of Martial art which was included for the first time in the Games.

"Maratab and Ejaz are the gold medal winners while Bashir claimed a silver while Asghar was not part of the team which participated in South Asia Games but he performed extremely well in the trials held here a few days ago for the selection of the team ",he asserted.

He said Sajid Hussain and Muhammad Khalid are also attending the camp to give practice to the team members as large number of participation help in creating better sense of competition and inspire the players to keep improving.

Iftikhar said Wushu has been included in the Asian Games first time and Pakistan has a fair chance of winning a medal.

Secretary PWF said Pakistan Sports Trust and Pakistan Sports Board have agreed on a month training of the team in China.

"Since no Chinese coach is available in Pakistan as it was for the South Asia Games, the only option is to send the team to China to get most modern training under the able guidance of world's best coaches ",he said.

He said PST and PSB are sorting out all the details of the tour and most likely the team will be visiting China next month after having warm up training at Islamabad.

"Our objective is to attain fruitful results in the Asian Games for one month training in China will help serve the purpose ",he said adding "

Before the South Asia Games people were saying we donot have much chances of winning the medals but our performance was very encouraging and we want to do our best in the Asian Games", he said. ●