Haroon to lead Pakistan boxers at World Championships
KARACHI: Haroon Khan, younger brother of Younger brother of internationally renowned boxer Amir Khan who is WBA light welterweight champion, will lead Pakistan boxing team at the 2011 AIBA World Boxing Championships in Baku, Azerbaijan, next month.
Haroon Khan
The Pakistan Boxing Federation (PBF) told The Sports Encounter on Saturday that Khan, who competes for Pakistan under his grandmother’s name Iqbal, will now lead a five-man Pakistani team at the 2011 AIBA World Boxing Championships.
The younger Khan brother made headlines last year after choosing to fight for Pakistan ahead of England after claiming he had been unfairly snubbed by GB Boxing.
The 20-year-old represented Pakistan at the Delhi 2010 Commonwealth Games last October and claimed bronze in the 52kg lightweight category, beating Welsh star Andrew Selby in the process.
He received an Rs2-million (£14,664/$24,259/€16,864) reward from the Pakistan Sports Board (PSB) for making in onto the podium in Delhi and claimed he made a point to GB Boxing.
Haroon said after picking up the bronze medal, “I think I’ve proved my point to the selectors. There wasn’t a British boxer in my category in the semi-finals. I would love to see the selectors now. I should have won that medal for England. My aim was to come here and stand on that podium and I’ve got the bronze medal – it means so much to me. Now I can put my medal next to Amir’s Olympic silver medal.”
Muhammad Wasim (49kg), Muhammad Hussain (55kg), Aamir Khan (65kg) and Nisar Khan (75kg) will line-up alongside Khan for the event which takes place from September 22 to October 10 and acts as a qualifier for the 2012 Olympic Games next year with all the quarter-finalists from the qualifying rounds set to earn a spot at London.
While talking to The Sports Encounter correspondent Secretary Pakistan Boxing Federation, Mohammad Akram Khan hoped that the current breed of Pakistani boxers will bring back the laurels at the championships.
He said that Pakistani boxers have in them what it takes to fight at the international level and if they performed as per their talent then they would cement their place in the next year’s London Olympics.
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