Two more Pakistani athletes eliminated from Tokyo Olympics

KARACHI: Two more Pakistani athletes were eliminated from Tokyo Olympics on Tuesday without medals after failing to qualify for the next stages in their respective sports.

Mahoor Shahzad was representing Pakistan in Badminton and Haseeb Tariq in Swimming at the Games.

Pakistan’s top ranked and world number 133 shuttler Mahoor was facing world number 26, Kirsty Gilmour, and after resisting against the better ranked player for 31 minutes, she went down 21-14, 21-14.

This was the second consecutive defeat for Mahoor at the Olympics, which led to her elimination from the race.

She played two matches and lost both. In the first match, the Pakistani shuttler was defeated by Japan’s Akane Yamaguchi.

However, it is worth mentioning that Mahoor was facing players ranked much higher than her.

Swimmer Haseeb Tariq was contesting heats for men’s 100m freestyle swimming. He jumped in the pool for heat number 2 and finished with an individual timing of 53.81. The Pakistani swimmer couldn’t improve his own personal best as he had aimed before the Games.

He finished 6th among eight swimmers in his heat while his overall position in the heats was 62nd out of 70 swimmers contesting.

He was 6.10 seconds behind the top ranked swimmer in the 100m freestyle heat while 5.37s behind the last swimmer to qualify for the semi finals in the category.

Pakistan will next be in action at the Olympics on Thursday when Judoka Shah Hussain Shah will take on Egypt’s Ramadan Darwaish in men’s 100kg round-of-32 bout.