Competitions begin in Youth Festival third level

Lahore: In the third level of the Punjab Youth Festival 2012, competitions of school children (boys and girls) and the general public formally started at different venues of the province on Saturday.

In the Tehsil level events which are being contested among the union councils in nine sectors and in 31 events, participants are getting back to norms of sports and healthy activities.
On the opening day of the active competitions held at different towns of Lahore, Iqbal Park and Gulberg Town have sports events like Badminton, cricket, table tennis, tug of war, chess while at Punjab Stadium several athletics events were held.

At Ravi Town, dress designing show was held at Gulshan Ravi Degree College for Women which was followed by contest of milli naghme. Waris Baig and Humera Arshad performed the duties of judges and also entertained the girl students by singing national songs.
Chief organiser of the Punjab Youth Festival, Deputy Speaker Rana Mashhood Ahmed Khan was the chief guest of the competition. On the occasion he paid rich tributes to the youngsters of Punjab. “They are the future of the country and are ready to face any challenge. The youth festival is one such platform provided by the Punjab government to these youngsters to show their talent.”

He further said that the Youth Festival is the reflection of Chief Minister Punjab Mian Shahbaz Sharif’s vision and is being reflected by the talent of youngsters.

In Data Ganj Bax Town, Cricket hardball was held at Union Council 85 in which Rafi XI beat Bilal Ganj XI by 40 runs. In Wahga Town, Football matches were played between different union councils among which union councils 62 and 65 won their matches. In the Tug of War, union councils 65, 53, 50, 39 and 62 were declared winners. In Billiard, union councils 52, 65, 62, 42 while in Arm Wrestling, union councils 39, 65, 51, 53 and 65 won the contests. In Athletics, 100 metres race was won by Ishtiaq Mushtaq of union council 65. In Badminton, union council 52 defeated union council 62, union council 53 beat union council 30 and union council 37 outplayed union council 50 by a similar margin of 2-0. In the Volleyball matches, union councils 63, 65, 51 and 50 were declared winners.

In Aziz Bhatti Town, Cricket hardball matches were held. Union council 41’s Ahmed XI beat union council 1’s Asim XI by 10 runs whereas union council 43’s Malik XI defeated union council 2’s Qadir XI six wickets. In Gulberg, Athletics and Cricket events were held. In Athletics , 800 M and 1500 M races were won by Mohammad Ali while Zebur Rehman bagged first position in 100 M and 200 M races. In Tug of War, union council 32 defeated union council 128. In the cricket hardball, union council 75 beat union council 76 by 7 wickets. In Table Tennis, union council 129 defeated union council 97. Shahzab, Mohammad Altaf and Mohammad Saeed were the winners from union council 129.Hamza, Tahir and Abdul Rafiq of union council 126 beat union council 128. In Iqbal Town, Cricket hardball matches were played among various union councils. Union council 120’s Razzaq XI beat Munawar Qadri XI by 1 run. In the final match, union council 110’s Qadeer XI beat union council 120’s Razzaq XI by 20 runs.

The two general public sectors include individual and family and they are to compete in naat khani, qirat, cooking, horticulture, painting, photography, poetry, milli naghme and pets competition while the family events are cooking, family dressing, healthy baby, kitchen gardening and photography.

The sports sector again has been divided into several sectors with four alone for schools. Two are for boys and girls and the same number are for secondary and elementary level while the fifth sector is for general public. The events including arm wrestling (three categories), athletics (eight categories), badminton, basketball, chess, cricket (hard ball), football, hockey, table tennis, tug of war and volleyball and the girls have seven common events with boys and their eighth event includes karate (three categories).

On the other hand the general public sports have 19 events including arm wrestling (three categories), athletics (eight categories), badminton, billiard, cricket tape ball, tug or war, volleyball, bodybuilding, (three categories), football, fun race (2.5 km), weightlifting, basketball, chess, cricket hard ball, hockey, kabaddi, mat wrestling (three categories), mud wrestling (three categories) and table tennis,” he informed.

The school competitions include debate, essay writing, milli naghme, naat khani, painting and qirat events while the girl students have extra categories like cooking, cultural modeling and dress show to compete in.

In the rural sector competitions like bull race, bull cart race, donkey cart race, horse race, dog race, tippling / pigeon flying, best agriculture produce and best livestock are being held.