Jordan’s Obada Al-Kasbeh received a wild card for Rio

Jordan’s Obada Al-Kasbeh received a quota place for Rio from the Tripartite Quota Commission

Jordan’s Obada Al-Kasbeh received a wild card for the Rio 2016 Olympic Games which was decided by the Tripartite Quota Commission in the recent days. After his Super Heavyweight class (+91 kg) teammate Hussein Iashaish he is Jordan’s second boxer who received the right to box in the Rio 2016 Olympic Games.
Five boxers have been invited by the International Olympic Committee and the Tripartite Quota Commission to raise the number of the countries in the Games. Besides to Al-Kasbeh, Vanuatu’s Oceanian Champion Boe Lionel Warawara, Papua New Guinea’s Commonwealth Youth Games winner Thadius Katua, Fiji’s Winston Hill and Zambia’s Benny Muziyo received the chance to fight in the Rio 2016 Olympic Games.
Obada Al-Kasbeh was born in 1994 and involved to the national squad at the age of 18 in 2012. Short after that he was silver medallist at the 2013 ASBC Asian Confederation Boxing Championships in Amman, Jordan in the front of the home crowd. He lost to only Kazakhstan’s strong favourite Berik Abdrakhmanov in the final of the continental event.
Al-Kasbeh put himself into the spotlight once again in 2014 when he opened with an amazing success over his big rival Kazakhstan’s Berik Abdrakhmanov at the Asian Games in Incheon. Jordan’s pride achieved bronze medal finally in the boxing tournament of the Asian Games in South Korea two years ago where he proved his fighting spirit.
He competed in the 2015 ASBC Asian Confederation Boxing Championships in Bangkok, Thailand where he failed to get a medal. Al-Kasbeh won the gold medal in their National Selection Tournament in the end of 2015 which guaranteed for him a place in Jordan’s squad in the qualification tournaments
He boxed well in the AIBA Asian & Oceanian Olympic Qualification Event in Qian’an, China where he tried to qualify for Rio. The 22-year-old boxer advanced to the quarter-final of the competition but he lost to Japan’s Daisuke Narimatsu in the key contest following his triumph over South Korea’s Choi Hae Ju.
Al-Kasbeh moved up to the Light Welterweight class (64 kg) in the recent months and adopted the level of the punches very quickly in his new category. He is not enough tall in the category but he is working from closer distance and his aggressive style is very uncomfortable for his opponents.
Al-Kasbeh also competed in the World Olympic Qualification Event in Baku, Azerbaijan last month where he advanced to the quarter-finals once again and lost to only US star Gary Russell. After the last qualification event he received the wild card from the Tripartite Quota Commission and can box at the Light Welterweight class (64 kg) in Rio.