LAHORE, Nov 9: While the Pakistan’s women touch-ball team earned a gold medal in the two-nation contest in the Punjab International Sports Festival beating Iran 3-2 in the extra time here on Friday, the ju-jitsu event that was to begin on Thursday, finally kicked off on Friday after an eleventh hour change of venue for security reasons.

Touch-ball is the only event in the festival in which a foreign female team participated. The teams were locked at 2-2 in the stipulated time but in the extra minutes Ghazala scored the winner for Pakistan.

Ju-jitsu event was to be held at the Allama Iqbal Medical College hall on Thursday, but at the eleventh hour a message was conveyed to the National Sports Federation head Khalil Ahmad Khan that as the security agencies were not clearing the venue, the event had been shifted to the Punjab University’s New Campus.

“Twelve countries are in Lahore to take part in ju-jitsu event and the visitors are upset over the sudden change in the venue,” Khalil told Dawn.

“It is hard to set the venue for an international match and it was not easy to shift it in such a short time. But at the new venue the Punjab Sports Board failed to make the necessary arrangements,” he said.

Later in the evening, a lack of coordination was witnessed as Mr Khalil told this reporter the ju-jitsu competitions had been started, contradicting an earlier Punjab Sports Board announcement that the event would start from Saturday.

Meanwhile, in other events, New Zealand thrashed Pakistan 38-0 to win the rugby gold medal in a one-sided final. In the international baseball competition, Sri Lanka thrashed Nepal 10-0.

In the football, Serbia beat Sri Lanka 3-2. Masic Dejau, Lazaravic Pavle and Dosevski Milos from Serbia hit one goal each, while Rohana Denesh and Sanoj scored one each for the losers. Yemen will meet Mangolia on Saturday.

In touch-ball men’s competition, six matches were decided. Surprisingly, a Punjab team was also placed in an international event against the rules. Punjab beat Jordan and then outplayed Yemen, while Jordan beat Yemen. Pakistan beat Syria and Sri Lanka earned a win against Jordan while Syria beat Nepal.

In the fist-ball, five league matches were decided. According to results, Punjab beat Jordan 2-0, Punjab beat Yemen 2-0, Pakistan beat Syria 2-0, Pakistan beat Afghanistan 2-0, and Sri Lanka beat Jordan 2-1.

The second hockey match between the Indian and Pakistani Punjab teams too ended in 5-5 draw. Earlier, in the opening match both teams had a 2-2 draw. Harpreet Singh hit three goals for Indian Punjab. The third and final match of the three-match series will be played on Sunday.

In national level competitions, Punjab won the national badminton women final beating NWFP 3-0. Farwa beat Khadija 11-2, 11-3, 11-1, Ayesha beat Sabahat 11-1, 11-1, 11-1, Saba beat Nida 11-2, 11-1 and 11-2.

In the athletics competitions, Saima earned first position in the 100-metre race, finishing the distance in 13 seconds. In the 200m race, Sehrish Asghar (Punjab) finished 28.16 seconds while Aneela of Fata stood second. In 400-metre category, Sahib-i-Asra (Punjab) finished 1:01 seconds, while Rukhsana (KPK) was second. In the 800-metre run, Sahib-i-Asra (Punjab) finished 2:36:00 seconds while in 1500m category Asia Munir finished 5:45 seconds.