ISLAMABAD, Oct 25 (APP): Pakistan judoka Qaisar Khan Afridi departed for Australia on Tuesday to participate in Perth Oceania Open 2022 as part of his campaign to amass maximum points to qualify for Paris 2024 Olympics.
“He has directly flown to Australia from Abu Dhabi where he featured in the Grand Slam, an Olympics qualifying event. He is accompanied by Iranian coach Sajjad Kazmi,” Masood Ahmed, vice president of Pakistan Judo Federation (PJF) told APP.
According to Masood, Pakistan’s Japan-based judoka Shah Hussain Shah, who also took part in Abu Dhabi Grand Slam will proceed to Australia on Wednesday after obtaining visa of that country. Shah competes in -90kg division, while Afridi contests in -100kg division. The Perth Oceania Open 2022 is scheduled for October 29-30
“After participation in Perth Oceania Open, both Afridi and Shah will leave for Azerbaijan to feature in Baku Grand Slam, taking place from November 4-6. Then, they along with judoka Hamid Khan (+100kg) will take part in Tokyo Grand Slam, to be held from December 3-4. “All these events serve as Olympic qualifiers, hence it is crucial for our judokas to compete in them as they carry the weightage of 50 per cent points,” Masood added.
“The IJF (International Judo Federation) has declared Perth Oceania Open equal to Grand Prix. This will offer a perfect opportunity to our judokas to collect maximum points by exhibiting good performance and brighten their chances to earn Paris tickets by improving their rankings,” he said.
Masood said that the PJF officials had recently held a meeting with Pakistan Sports Board’s (PSB) top brass wherein they were assured of financial support to it for judokas’ participation in the international events.
“A series of more qualifying events will be taking place next year, but we’ll plan about them later on as initially we are focused only on this year’s events,” he said.
The quotas for Paris 2024 will be allocated in line with the International Judo Federation’s (IJF) world ranking list during the Olympic qualification period. It means all world tour events held between June 24, 2022 and June 23, 2024 will impact the quota allocation. At the end of this period, for each of the seven weight categories, the top 17 countries represented in the world ranking will each receive a quota.
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