LAHORE – The 32nd Games commenced here at the Railway Stadium on Saturday in a colourful opening ceremony which participated by almost 3000 athletes of the entire country which march pasted the chief guests.
Swimmer Rohail Waqar lit the National Games torch while chief guest of the opening ceremony Syed Shahid Ali, who is International Olympic Committee (IOC) member in Pakistan and Punjab Olympic Association (PbOA) president, declared the Games open. Pakistan Olympic Association (POA) president Syed Arif Hassan, secretary Khalid Mehmood, Idress Haider Khawaja, Shaukat Javed, Khalid Bashir, Khawar Shah, Ch Yaqoob, Waqar Ali, Khurram Haroon and many other sports related dignitaries were also present on the occasion. Handball player Muzammal Mehmood took oath from all the participating players.
Chief guest was very happy to see the enthusiasm of the jam-packed crowd who was cheering the players, contingents and performers. Shahid said: “The presence and excitement of crowd proves that people still love games therefore they are here to cheer their teams and players and expecting a good show from them to make the national event a remarkable one.”
Punjab Olympic Association secretary Khawaja Idrees said: “Our efforts bore fruit as we started the Games at the given time frame and organisation of the event proves that Punjab can hold games at every level. We have done everything for the sake of Punjab’s honour and we will never let its respect down.”
“The athletes across the country have put faith in us for which we are thankful to them and hope it will help them to excel at national level,” he added.
Various events of the Games were held at different venues. In cycling competition, the first gold medal went to M Shakeel of Punjab in 1km time trials while in women event, Raheela Bano of Wapda clinched gold in 500 metre race. In volleyball, three matches were played in which Wapda downed KPK by 3-0 in the first match, HEC beat Punjab 3-0 in the second match while in the third match, Wapda outpaced Punjab 3-0.
In 10m air rifle (women), HEC scored 876 points to grabbed gold medal. Alizehh Babar of Sindh scored 351 to bagged the gold medal in individual category. In 50m pistol (men), Wapda scored 1,373 points to notch up the gold medal while the individual category gold went to M Abbas of Wapda who managed 497 points.