ISLAMABAD: Lahore snatched the lead on the opening day of the Third Inter-board Games ahead of Faisalabad and Gujranwala with six medals, including three golds, at the Pakistan Sports Complex here on Monday.

The Games see as many as 1100 athletes of various educational institutions participating in five disciplines namely athletics, badminton, hockey, taekwondo and volleyball.

Lahore’s Mohammad Ismail won the 800m final with team-mates Mohammad Arslan and Mohammad Ismail winning in the 400m and 1,500m.

The other three medals won by Lahore were bronze — secured by Arslan Ali, Fakhar and Liaq Naveed.

Faisalabad trail Lahore on points despite also winning six medals with Mohammad Saeed claiming a gold and a silver. Mubashir Hayat won another gold for them while Asadullah grabbed a silver with Shahnawaz bagging two bronze medals.

Third-placed Gujranwala won four medals with Umar Ahtisham their star performer with one gold medal. They won two silver medals courtesy Mohamamd Kamran and Abdullah while Zeshan Ahmed claimed their lone bronze.

Multan grabbed a gold in taekwondo with Hasan Ali winning ahead of Lahore’s Waqas Ali and Shakeel Ahmed of Swat.

Earlier, the secretary for Inter-Provincial Coordination (IPC) Ejaz Chaudhry inaugurated the Games, which conclude on Feb 22.

Also present on the occasion were IPC joint-secretary Khalid Mahmood Mirza and DG Pakistan Sports Board (PSB) Dr Akhtar Nawaz Ganjera along with the chairmen of relevant education boards.

“After the Games, the best athletes will be given training by the PSB,” Ganjera said. “By conducting healthy sporting activities, we can defeat terrorism and the PSB has plans to engage youth in sport.”

According to the PSB, a cash prize of Rs7,000 will be awarded to the gold medallists with the runner-up receiving Rs5,000 and the bronze medallists bagging Rs3,000.

Published in Dawn February 17th , 2015

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