A female judoka has died in Pakistan's Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province after suffering injuries during a competition. Fiza Sher Ali couldn't recover from the head injuries she sustained while competing in the 44kg category fight at a Youth Talent Hunt program in Mardan. (More Sports News)
Fiza, 20, fell instantly during her bout and didn't recover. "She was a first year BS student in Peshawar and had come to Mardan for the trials and was new to the sport," an official of the Pakistan Judo Federation said. "She was given medical treatment at the venue and rushed to the hospital but didn't survive."
A few days ago, a 16-year-old female tennis player from Karachi died in Islamabad from a suspected cardiac condition after taking part in an ITF junior tournament match.
A judoka practices judo, an unarmed Japanese martial art. The combat sport made its first appearance at the Olympic Games in 1964 in Tokyo. But it was included in the Olympic programme in 1968 in Mexico City. Women's judo was subsequently added to the Games in 1992 in Barcelona.
In Pakistan, the sport is governed by the Pakistan Judo Federation (PJF). A Pakistani women's team competed in the World Judo Championships for the first time in Tokyo, Japan, in 2010. The country sent its first judoka, Shah Hussain Shah, to the Olympic Games at Rio 2016.
Shah, a Japan-based judoka, also competed at the Tokyo 2020 Games. A two-time Commonwealth Games medallist, Shah remains arguably the most successful Pakistani judoka. He is the son of former Pakistani Olympic boxer, Hussain Shah, a bronze medallist at the Seoul 1998 Games.
