Hectic activity continued in the Union Council level of the Punjab Youth Festival 2012 on Sunday with the participants getting the taste of competitive sports and understanding the spirit of fighting till the end. With the second level of the festival concluding on September 18, the competitions had also entered into the final stage and on the day around 102419 competitors showed their skills throughout the province, raising the number of participants in this level to above 450,000. And on the day alone the number of participants swelled from the previous day’s figures of 75000. These 102419 participants took part in around 90 events and saw the involvement of 1491 Union Councils in the whole of Punjab.
In Lahore approximately 5000 youngsters of different union councils took part in 84 events and out of the nine towns of the city, Wagha, Aziz Bhatti, Gulberg, Ravi and Nashtar towns took active part in the events of arm wrestling, badminton both doubles and singles, tug of war, bodybuilding, and athletics while there was also competitions of naat khani, qirat, essay writing and painting among the elementary school students, which were held under the supervision of the Education department while Social Welfare department conducted dress designing, cooking and healthy baby competitions. Population Welfare Department recorded the participation of 37,586 ladies in healthy baby competition in the whole of Punjab with 5613 winning the competition. In Lahore 300 took part in this event and 90 were the winners.
In the education sector, 119,861 took part in 246 events of painting, milli naghme, debate, essay writing etc while the competitions are still continuing and in the next two days decide the winners. In Lahore alone 2289 students took part in the competitions from 51 markaz in 40 events.
Khawaja Salman Rafique, advisor to CM on health and MPA Rana Iqbal were the chief guests of the day during the competitions at Iqbal Park Sports Complex where Ravi Town Union Councils took part in different events.
In Aziz Bhatti Town, Union council 5’s Naeem Ashfaq, Kamran Afzal and Imran Ahmed defeated Mian Ishtiaq, Iftikhar Ahmed and M.Naeem in badminton doubles 21-15, 21-10. In singles, Usman beat Ibrar 2-0 whereas in the doubles, Mohammad Aqib defeated Ibrar and Hussain 2-0 in arm wrestling. In Billiard, Union council 132’s Mustafa beat Adeel.
In Ravi Town, Weight Lifting competitions were held in which Fawad Mirza of Union council 26 won the 62 KG’s category. In 70 KG’s Waqas Butt of Union council 26 was the winner while in 94 KG, Union Council 23’s Asad Talal Mir won his event.
In Shalimar Town, Arm Wrestling 62 KG competitions, Union council 19’s Rashid Butt, Union council 134’s Ehsan Ahsan from Nishtar Town, Union council 48’s Umair Aziz of Aziz Bhatti town and Union council 37’s Asif Rasheed of Wahga town were declared winners in 62 KG’s category. In 77 KG, Union council 134’s Aqeel Butt of Nishtar Town whereas Union council 90’s Aqeel Ahmed of Shalimar town won the competitions. In 94 KG category, Union council 21’s Mohammad Abdullah Butt bagged first position.
In the other 35 districts of the province, a total of about 1500 Union Councils took part in various events and competitions and there were around20159 winners. These winners have also been registered to be shortlisted to compete in the next round of the festival which is the Tehsil level that is starting from September 20.
Looking division-wise participation, Rawalpindi had 7193 competitors in 89 events with 158 UCs getting their youngsters involved in the events while 1873 were the winners. In Rawalpindi city 386 won their competitions after 2321 took part in 36 events. Sargodha had 4764 participants in 72 events with Bhakkar being the most active having around 1741 youngsters involved in 13 events from 23 Ucs.
Gujranwala was above all the divisions where 386 UCs got 20047 involved in 106 events and 2787 turned out to be the winners. In this division, Sialkot district registered more activeness among a total of 12226 participants. They hailed from 92 UCs and took part in 31 events with 695 winning their competitions. In Gujranwala city alone 4687 took part in 31 events with 1115 winning their events.
Similarly, 262 UCs of Faisalabad took part in 81 events and out of the 17495 participants 4515 won their competitions while in Faisalabad city alone out of the 10155 participants 3346 turned out to be triumphant and at Toba Tek Singh around 6000 took part in five events with 916 winning their games .
Likewise, Sahiwal had 3718 participants and 1098 winners, Multan had 9314 participants and 2908 winners, Bahawalpur got 8470 involved in 59 events with 1622 tasting win while in Dera Ghazi Khan 27456 took part in 38 events with Muzaffargarh recording 26662 participants and 1860 winners in 20 events.
