ISLAMABAD, March 25: All is set for the 9th SAF Games to go off with a grandiose opening ceremony on Monday, save a few final touches being given here and there to the venues.

The painting of all the venues is nearing completion and will be wrapped up within a day or two. The full dress rehearsal of opening and closing ceremonies is scheduled to be held on March 27 in which more than 8,000 students from various schools and collages will present PT show.

Sale of ticket for the opening and closing ceremonies of the 9th SAF Games is in progress. Both these ceremonies will be held at the 45,817-seat Jinnah Stadium, Pakistan Sports Complex.

The sale of tickets for the opening and closing ceremonies will continue till March 29 and April 7 respectively when the two events actually take place. Tickets for the opening and closing ceremonies will be priced at Rs.2,000, Rs.500, Rs.100 and 50 only.

Barring these two ceremonies, the venues for the 15- discipline SAF Games will remain ticket-free. As many as 567 male and female volunteers from educational institutions have completed training to act as protocol personnel during the forthcoming 9th SAF Games.

All the selected volunteers have been trained by the officials of SAF Games Secretariat, Police and Foreign Office. Seven SAARC countries alongwith Afghanistan will participate in 15 disciplines of 9th SAF Games.

The 15 disciplines to feature during the SAF Games are: athletics, swimming, squash, rowing, shooting, boxing,badminton, table tennis, taekwondo, karate, kabaddi, football, volleyball, wrestling and weightlifting.

Competitions of athletics, badminton, boxing, table tennis, squash, shooting, swimming, and football will be held within Pakistan Sports Complex. Rowing will be organised at Rawal Lake, weightlifting at Community Centre Aabpara while Kabaddi, Karate and Taekwondo events will held in Rawalpindi. The events of wrestling will be held at Wah Cantt.

Pakistan, India and Sri Lanka will compete in all disciplines while Bangladesh in 13 events except in squash and rowing. Nepal, Bhutan, Maldives and Afghanistan will be represented in lesser number of events. -APP