As many as 50,140 people participated in the opening games of tehsil-level competitions of the Punjab Youth Festival on Saturday.
A total of 15,300 people emerged winners in 137 tehsils of the province.
The sporting events included taped tennis ball cricket, bodybuilding, tug of war, arm-wrestling, kabadi, badminton, snooker, volleyball, basketball, weightlifting, racing and football. The non-sporting events included cooking, dress making, poetry, photography, singing, painting, qirat, national song and naat contests.
In Gulberg, 238 people participated in various games and 44 people emerged as winners.
Muhammad Hameed won the athletics event followed by Muhammad Khalid. Basheer Ali won the badminton games and Muhammad Imtiaz and Rashid Ali bagged the top two positions in the bodybuilding contest.
The weightlifting title went to Muhammad Mubarak.
In Nishtar Town, 42 out 346 participants won various competitions.
Bilawal and Mujtaba finished first and second respectively in billiard championship. Jamshed’s team beat Nasir’s in basketball and Yousuf Ali XI captured the hockey title. Nabeel Ali won the table tennis event.
In Wagha Town, 276 people competed and 61 people won.
In Shalimar Town, 873 athletes featured in the competitions and 74 emerged successful. The tug of war event went to Team Sajjad. In the bodybuilding event, Rafiq and Hussian grabbed the first two positions. Team Aqeel were declared winners against Team Javed in the kabaddi event. Participation was comparatively low in Aziz Bhatti Town where only 52 people turned and only four won emerged triumphant.
In Data Ganj Bakhsh Town, 58 players out of 364 players won various competitions.
In Samanabad Town, 37 out of 295 competitors won their games.
In Iqbal Town, 84 athletes competed and 14 emerged winners.
As many as 4,422 people from Kasur, Nankana Sahib and Sheikhupura took part in various competitions and 378 were declared winners.
As many as 1,991 players from Jhang and Toba Tek Singh participated in different events where 852 emerged winners.
In Okara and Pakpattan, 3,322 participated in different events and 810 won the games.
In Vehari, Khanewal and Lodhran tehsils, out of 830 participants, 141 won.
In Rahim Yar Khan and Bahawalnagar tehsils, 476 were victorious out of 1,314 participants.
In Rajanpur, Layyah and Muzaffargarh tehsils, 3,803 participated and 1,813 won.
Chakwal, Attock and Jhelum tehsils, 373 competed and 91 were declared winners.
In Bhakkar, Khushab and Mianwali tehsils, 6,137 were victorious out of 22,226 particpants.
Published in The Express Tribune, January 19th, 2014.