On the fifth day of the Neighbourhood and Village level of the Punjab Youth and Sports Festival on Thursday interest of people from all walks of life has increased tremendously, with final stages of the first phase approaching competitions are getting challenging.
The competitions among different Sports and Youth Development Councils of various Union Councils in nine towns are entering in interesting phase and in some towns competitions have entered into pre-quarters stage and in certain places they are in last eight-stage. Yesterday, 1411 youngsters showed their skills in all the seven sporting and two general events of the Neighbourhood and Village level of the Festival in the city alone. The nine towns of the provincial capital including Shalimar, Wagha, Aziz Bhatti, Gulberg, Nashtar, Iqbal, Ravi, Samanabad and Data Ganj Bukhsh had 183 blocks and localities of 17 UCs competitions in 41 events. Out of these nine towns, Shalimar and Ravi towns competed in all the nine event s while the other seven got involved in sports affairs. Mian Naseer Ahmed, MNA and Convener Town Sports and Youth Development Council was the chief guest of the opening ceremony of the two UC’s of Aziz Bhatti Town. The competitions of these UCs were conducted at Bara Dari Cricket Ground near Hazarat Mian Meer Darbar Dharampura. From among some of the competitions results collected from the city, UC 92 saw Usman Asif, Bilal Rasheed, Hashim Shakeel, Seeshan Asad win their badminton matches. In UC 9, 10, 21, 22, 42 and 48 contests on billiard, athletics, cricket and arm wrestling were held.
The youngsters of Block 4 D, 2 D, 3D, I D of UC 138 were the winner of the tug competition against their second string of the same block in tug of war. In volleyball of UC 96 block no 8, Sikandar Road team beat Wapda Colony 25-16, captain of the winner’s team Mohammad Ashfaq was the prominent player while Sabir Iqbal did well from the losing side. Block 65 team defeated White House Line in tug of war competition 2-1. In Badminton Rohail Yousuf and Nafay Shah of Block 3 beat Mohammad Nawaz and Rizwan in Block 3’s win over their sister team. In the same area, Basti Sadain Shah overcame Block No 1 players in Billiard. Mohammad Ali and Adeel Butt were the players who won over Raza Mubashar and Rizwan Akram 20-10. In the other 36 districts of Punjab, there was participation of 75752 youngsters in 376 events contested among 4183 blocks of 930 Sports and Youth Development Councils and out of these participants 16908 were the winners.
In the district of Jhelum 1744 participants of 81 UCs showed their talent but ultimate honour went in favour of 840. Likewise, 7547 participated in 19 events contested in between 31 UCs and 235 blocks in 19 events and 2057. At MIanwali, 129 UCs’ 393 blocks contested in 61 events and out of the mass participation of 10671 youngsters on these areas 3042 were the winners. Similarly, at Nankana Sahib out of the 42 UCs and 213 blocks competitions were held in 59 events with participation of 2093 youngsters and 978 were the winners.
In one of the districts of Multan, Khanewal 10790 youngsters took part in 65 events from 789 blocks of 169 UCs and 4617 got top honours. Similarly, in Muzaffargarh 1183 blocks of 194 S&YDCs took part in 41 events and 4934 were the winners from among 40242 participants.
