Lahore: Nearly half of the competitions and events of the second level of the Punjab Youth Festival 2012 concluded on the 10th day on Monday with the remaining finals set to be held on the final day tomorrow (Tuesday) throughout the province.
On the second last day of the Union Council level, the events and competitions of cooking and dress designing concluded under the supervision of the Social Welfare Department while the healthy baby competition under the general public sector of family events, are continuing and a large number of participation was registered making the venues of the events a look of a fancy dress show.
However, the sports events that include arm wrestling, athletics, badminton, billiard, cricket, tug of war, volleyball, bodybuilding and weightlifting are being held in its final stage throughout the province and on the day nearly 77,697 youngsters took part in these events in 677 events and with the involvement of 1497 Union Councils, 19,432 youngsters were the winners. With the events of the second level reaching its conclusion a total participation in the Union Council crossed half a million with 118,338 winning their respective competitions.
Lahore division saw 8223 people from 103 UCs taking part in 94 events and 3170 claimed the top honour. Kasur district was the most active where 45 UCs with 5322’s participation in 20 events that make the competitions lively and the winners were 2053. At Nankana Sahib 23 UCs’ 1441 took part in 22 events and 603 saw the light.
In Lahore, around 14 UCs got 584 youngsters involved in 36 events and win landed 292’s way. Out of the nine towns of the city, Gulberg, Iqbal and Ravi towns had more than 350 people taking part in 15 events.
Ch Shahbaz, MPA, was the chief guest at Iqbal Park Sports Complex venue where bodybuilding and weightlifting competition were held.
In Samanabad badminton events were held. Union council 104’s Mohammad Umer, Umer Rafi and Ghulam Mustfa qualified for next level of competitions. In Billiard, Mohammed Danial Shahid and Mohammed Sufian Yusuf of Union council 104 were the winners. In Shalimar Town, Union council 46’s block 1 defeated block 3, 2-0. The score was 11-9, 11-7. In Billiard, Union council 47’s block 4 beat block 5, 2-0.
In the Arm Wrestling competitions, Union council 46’s Tehseen Hussain of block 1 beat Junaid of block 5, 2-0.
In Ravi Town, Body Building Union council 9’s Qasim Ali bagged first position in the category 65 kgs. In 75 Kg, Rafaqat Ali was declared winner while in 75 + kgs, Amjad won the competition. In Shalimar town, Bodybuilding competitions, players from Union council 25 participated. In 65 kgs, Qasim Mehmood won while in 75 kgs, Adeel achieved first position. In Iqbal Town, Union council 114’s Akmal Kamran won the 65 kgs’s category whereas Afzal Butt attained position in 75 kgs.
In the various competitions of Weightlifting among different towns, Haris Butt of Shalimar Town won in 62 kgs, Mohammed Fiaz of Samanabad Town and Nadeem of Ravi Town were declared winners in the same category. In 77 kgs, Rizwan Nawaz of Aziz Bhatti town, Yahya Butt of Nishtar town, Mohammed Ilyas of Samanabad Town and Mohammed Bilal of Shalimar Town won the competitions. In +94 kgs, Noman Nadeem Butt of Wahga Town and Mohammed Hamza of Aziz Bhatti Town bagged positions. In the Arm Wrestling, Tehseen Hashim of Union council 46 beat Junaid 2-0. In Billiard, Union council 7’s Nabeel Butt outplayed Shahzad 2-0. In the Badminton tournaments of Shalimar Union council 46’s Rizwan beat Tahir 2-0. In Arm Wrestling, Union council 28’s Mohammad Ibrahim beat Muzammil Hussain in 65 kgs category. In 70 kgs, Mohammad Afzal beat Mohammad Mushtaq 2-0 and In + 75 kgs, Amjad Ali defeated Asim 2-1.
At Shadbagh, Mohammad won the healthy baby competition, Abeera Fiaz was second and Shafian Irfan was third while Faiza Gul, LHV was the chief guest and gave the prizes to the winners. At Garishahu, Talha Amer was the winner of the healthy baby contest while Khyzer Shoaib Bokhari was the second and Mohamamd Dawood was third. Here Abid Ali, Tehsil officer Population Lahore Cantt was the chief guest and gave the prizes to the winners.
Similarly, the participation of people in other parts of the province created history and revived sports culture. The ground which were being used by different quarters were got released from their occupation and active sports events are now being held on those sports facilities. In Rawalpindi 5303 people of 157 UCs took part in 88 events. In this division, the Rawalpindi district got 1665 from 50 UCs involved in 31 events and 362 winning their events. Then comes Attock where 1503 took part in 30 events and 51 UCs showed their interest in the festival with 609 winning respectively. Sargodha had 2733 involved in the events from 112 UCs. From 50 events there were around 1010 winners. It was in Bhakkar district of Sargodha where 1059 people of different walks of life took part in seven events. A total of 203 winners got to the limelight as 20 UCs remained active in the activities.
Gujranwala was again ahead of all divisions where more than 20840 from 465 UCs competed in 110 events and 2758 winning their competitions. Here the Gujranwala city alone 5166’s of 184 took part in 32 events and 1020 won their respective events.
Faisalabad got 197 UC’s 10570 involved in 83 events with 3388 winning their matches, Sahiwal had 73 UCs 3079 competing in 49 events and 968 winning, Multan got 163 UCs taking part in 98 events and out of the 13713, 3164 won their games. Bahawalpur had 1493 winning from 7284 participants and at Dera Ghazi Khan 1727 won from among 5952 from 93 UCs.