ISLAMABAD: Pakistani judokas will not be able to feature in the Commonwealth Judo Championships, starting in the Indian city of Jaipur from Sunday, due to visa issues.
The championships, running from November 4 to 11, will be contested in masters, seniors, juniors and cadet categories and Pakistan Judo Federation (PJF) had announced last month that its Judokas would participate in all the categories of the event.
“Our 19 Judokas were set to leave for the championship via Wagah Border. It would have been our first ever full-fledged participation in an international event. But I’m very sad that we are going to miss this event due to visa delay,” Masood Ahmed, PJF’s vice president told APP on Friday.
Masood claimed that the delay to get visas was on the part of the Indian home ministry. “We’ve processed our case to the organizers of the event, the Indian Judo Federation well in time. They were very cooperative and tried their best to get clearance for our athletes. But I believe the delay is on the part of Indian Home Ministry as it took too long to decide in our case. Although it has cleared us now, we will not be able to reach in time as Saturday and Sunday are off days and we can only apply for visas on Monday,” he maintained.
Masood said that on the sidelines of the championships, elections for the Commonwealth Judo Association would also take place in India on November, 5 adding that PJF was set to vie for an executive committee seat. “Now we’ll also miss these elections,” he added.
