United Arab Emirates (UAE) based Pakistani taekwondo player Sinan Ashfaq Ahmed won silver medal at the Belgium Open Taekwondo Championship this week. The 40th Belgium Open Taekwondo Championship was held in Lommel from March 15 to 17. Sinan beat Pavel Mironov of Russia in the semi-final in the +65kg cadet category before being forced to forfeit the gold medal match due to injury. Sinan’s coach Abdullah Hatim, UAE national team coach and technical director at Sharjah Sports Club, commended Sinan’s performance considering that it was a G2 event with participation of more than 1,400 athletes from over 50 countries. “Sinan has good prospects in the Cadet Taekwondo World Cup if he continues to work hard,” said Hatim. Sinan’s win was even more special as this was the third medal from him for Pakistan in less than two months. He had won gold at the Fujairah Open Taekwondo Championship in February and another gold at the UAE National Championship in Sharjah on March 1. The 13-year-old Sharjah boy had opened with a bronze for Pakistan at the President’s World Taekwondo Championship held in Tashkent in August 2017 making him the first Pakistan expatriate to win medals in taekwondo for his country. Colonel Waseem Ahmed, President of the Pakistan Taekwondo Federation (PTF), said that he was confident of Sinan’s success at the next two competitions to be held in Tashkent and Amman later this year. Sinan is younger brother of Ammar Ashfaq Ahmed, who represented Pakistan at the Junior World Cup last year and also played a number of other international events for their country. They are based in the UAE. Published in Daily Times, March 20th 2019.