The Chinese amateur boxing team won first place in the team event of the tournament, the first Shaheed Benazir Bhutto International Tournament, held in Karachi, Pakistan at the KPT Benazir Sports Complex from the 1st to the 9th of January, winning four gold medals. It was the first major amateur boxing event of 2010 and the first international sports event in Pakistan since the Mumbai terrorist attack in November 2008.

Since the terrorist attacks on the Sri Lanka cricket team in March last year, foreign sportsmen had refused to travel to Pakistan but this tournament even saw three Indian boxers in attendance, marking the first time any athletes from the country had travelled to the neighboring nation for a sports event since relations between the two South Asian countries were damaged by the Mumbai attack.

Host nation Pakistan competed with two teams in the event, which saw a total of 20 teams competing from China, Thailand, Uzbekistan, Mongolia, Syria, India, Hungary, Kenya, Iraq and Cameroon. Rising British-Pakistani star Amir Khan and 1988 Seoul Olympic Games bronze medalist Syed Hussain Shah were awarded honorary gold medals on behalf of the Pakistan Boxing Federation.

Syria clinched two gold and two silver medals in Karachi. Thailand collected two golds and host nation Pakistan won only one gold medal. Byamba Tuvshinbat of Mongolia (64kg) was named best boxer of the event. The tournament was the first-ever boxing event in Pakistan to offer prize money to boxers and teams.

Outside the ring, nine boxers, including Beijing Olympian welterweight boxer Joseph Mulema of Cameroon and eight other African boxers, embraced Islam, converting to the religion while in Karachi for the tournament.

News Source AIBA

Picture: Source AIBA