ISLAMABAD - M Waseem provided Pakistan the much-needed joy of the entire Championship by winning the lone gold medal as he completely outclassed his Kenyan opponent 26-9and was also named the best boxer of the championship on the final day of the Second Benazir Bhutto Shaheed International Boxing Championship on Thursday.
Besides Waseem’s gold, Pakistan also managed to win seven bronze medals. Uzbekistani boxers were by far the best of the lot as they won six gold medals and clinched the best team of the championship award of a trophy along with $ 5000 prize money. Syria remained second with two golds and pocketed $2500.
Waseem won the Best Boxer of the Championship Award unanimously and was awarded $2000. Best Referee/Judge award went to Taiwan's Yang Shin Jen.
The ten gold medal winning boxers were given a cash prize of $800 each, silver medallists received $500 each, while the bronze medallists got $250 each. Over all Rs five million cash awards were distributed among the players and technical delegates with Rs 3 million was given to players and Rs 2 million to technical staff.
It was a fantastic day for Pakistan Boxing as Waseem who enjoyed tremendous support not only from the Pakistani set of spectators who were at the arena in quite a numbers as the presence of former British Boxing champion Amir Khan was more than enough to pull a massive crowd on the final day but also enjoyed an over whelming support from Syrian and Iranian spectators and entire boxing staff who chanted Pakistan Zindabad and Waseem Zindabad throughout the match. It was the crowd who never let Waseem down and he responded in tremendous style by completely dominating his opponent in all the three rounds. He won the first round with a 11-2, second 7-4 and last round 8-4 to cap a memorable night for hosts in the 52kg category final.
Amir Khan remained right throughout the match and remained busy giving autographs and snaps with a huge set of followers who made long queues and waited for several hours to be able to have a picture with him. The security personal roughly treated the Amir lovers and even journalists were not spared from their wrath as they threatened them of dire consequences and even push them while they were trying to perform their official duties.
President Pakistan Boxing Federation Doda Khan Bhutto once again came to the rescue of journalists and little kids who just wanted to have a snap with their beloved Amir. The security personal and above all organisers of the event must have at least realised that Amir was so much so popular with the crowd and it was his personality which was pulling the crowd to witness the championship which otherwise was a complete flop as far as the attendance of spectators was concerned throughout the seven days of the championship.
It was a festival like situation in the Gymnasium as hundreds of fans were gathered there for just a glimpse of Amir and Haroon Khan. Amir's mother was also present on the final bout between Waseem and Kenyan opponent and she was continuously praying for Waseem's victory and as soon as the announcement of Waseem's victory was made, she started to clap and tears were pouring down from her eyes.
Pakistan Sports Board Director facilities Aga Amjed Ullah remained active throughout the championship and provided the much-needed assistance to media persons and look after them in a very nice way. If he was not there then journalists were left on the mercy of PSB and so-called event management firm Media Guru who were supposed to look after the vent and provide facilities to journalists in particular and the general public, but they were only there to create hurdles and stop the journalists from performing their official duties.
They even misbehaved with number of senior journalists and tried to create a scene if Doda was not their then all was set for a clash between them and public. The credit for holding such a wonderful event must be given to Doda Bhutto, who remained humble, down to earth and put up an excellent show with his own pocket without a single penny's help from the government or any other institution that backed off from promised funding. It was also a matter of great shame for government as this event was named after Benazir Bhutto and her party is ruling the country but no one bothers to take off some time from their other commitments and visit the event.