DUSHANBE, February 5, 2010, Asia-Plus  -- The National Olympic Committee (NOC) of Tajikistan places great hope on judoka Rasoul Boqiyev, the NOC vice-president Shirin Mamadsafoyev said in an interview with Asia-Plus.

“We hope that our judoka will win gold medal for Tajikistan in the 2012 Olympic Games that will be held in London,” said Mamadsafoyev, “It is a bold statement of course, but the previous achievements of Rasoul Boqiyev, in particular in the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing and at the 2007 World Judo Championships in Rio de Janeiro, give us the right to hope for this.”

We will recall that Rasoul Boqiyev won the bronze medal in the -73 kg category in the 2008 Olympics in Beijing and finished third at the 2007 World Judo Championships in Rio de Janeiro.

According to Mamadsafoyev, Rasoul Boqiyev will take part in the Olympic qualification events that will start in Tunisia on May 1 and a week later in Egypt.  “Later, he will be training for the World Judo Championships that will take place in Tokyo in September this year and the Asian Judo Championships that will be held in Guangzhou (China) in November,” the NOC vice-president said.

Rasoul Boqiyev is one of the top judokas in Tajikistan in the -73 kg category; he won the first medal for Tajikistan in the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing.