Director General Sports Punjab Adnan Arshad Aulakh inaugurated 24th National Boys Age Group Swimming Championship at a colourful opening ceremony at State of the Art Punjab International Swimming Complex on Friday.
The major feature of the opening day was three national swimming records established by Punjab’s young swimmers - Zain Younis, Ibraheem Rasheed and Daniyal Ghulam Nabi.
Punjab’s Zain Younis created new national swimming record in 50m Freestyle U-16 contest with the timing of 25.88.
Ibraheem Rasheed wrote his name in record books when he broke previous record in 200m Freestyle U-14 competition with the new timing of 2.17.76. Daniyal Ghulam Nabi excelled in 100m Breaststroke U-14 event and set new national swimming record. He completed his distance in 1.13.70 time.
Young swimmers of various age group categories offered wonderful performances on the opening day and won huge appreciation from the crowed and guests of honour.
While talking to media on this occasion, Director General Sports Punjab Adnan Arshad Aulakh welcomed the participants of 24th National Boys Age Group Swimming Championship saying that it’s a great honour for us to host young swimmers from across the country.
Answering a question, Director General Sports Punjab Adnan Arshad Aulakh said 24th National Boys Age Group Swimming Championship is a joint venture of Sports Board Punjab and Punjab Swimming Association. “Sports Board Punjab will continue to hold more sports events with collaboration of Punjab sports associations in future. The main purpose of this kind of championships is to trace young talented players from all parts of the country”.
Director General Sports Punjab Adnan Arshad Aulakh said the Sports School project of Sports Board Punjab has been approved and it will start working in near future.
Chief Patron Punjab Swimming Association Zoraiz Lashari, Prof Atif Shafiq of GCU Lahore, swimming coach Rafi-uz-Zaman and a large number of young swimmers from Punjab, Sindh, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Balochistan, Gilgit Baltistan and Islamabad were also present on this occasion.
Director General Sports Punjab Adnan Arshad Aulakh also distributed medals among the prominent performers after the day one competitions. Chief Patron Punjab Swimming Association Zoraiz Lashari also presented a souvenir to Director General Sports Punjab Adnan Arshad Aulakh.
The 3-day 24th National Boys Age Group Swimming Championship is being competed till October 13, 2019 under the auspices of Punjab Swimming Association and with the collaboration of Sports Board Punjab (SBP).
Following are the opening day results:
50m Backstroke U-16:
1. Abdullah Ashfaq (Pjb), 2. M Hassan (Pjb), 3. Abdullah Bengali (Sindh)
100m Breaststroke U-14:
1. Daniyal Ghulam Nabi (Pjb), 2. Hamza (Pjb), 3. Ryaan Adnan Ali (Sindh)
4x200m Freestyle U-16:
1. Hamza, Zeeshan, Najib, Sameer (Sindh), 2. Abdullah, Hassan, Feroze, Adeel (Pjb) 3. Faras, Tariq, Mujtaba, Haris (KPK)
50m Freestyle U-16:
1. Zain Younis (Pjb), 2. Adeel Razzaq (Pjb), 3. Najib Khurram (Sindh)
200m Freestyle U-14:
1. Ibraheem Rasheed (Pjb), 2. Taha Anver Ali (Sindh) 3. Mikail Faisal Ijaz (Pjb)
400m Freestyle U-16:
1. Zeeshan Abbas (Sindh), 2. Sameer Asif (Sindh), 3. Abdullah Salman (Pjb)
200m Backstroke U-14:
1. Ahmed Durrani (KPK), 2. Saif Khurram (Sindh), 3. Hamza Asif (Pjb)
100m Butterfly U-12:
1. Syed Azlan Sohail (Sindh), 2. Mohid Sadiq Lone (Pjb), 3. Suleman Babar (Pjb).