LAHORE, Feb 28: Around 7,500 boys and girls from all nine divisions of the Punjab province participated in the Parade of Athletes as the final round of Punjab Sports Festival formally began at the National Hockey Stadium here on Tuesday.

Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif declared the festival open in presence of around 35,000 applauding spectators who turned up in the 80,000-seat stadium.

Former Olympians – hockey team skipper Manzoor Junior, under whose captaincy Pakistan won its last Olympic gold medal in Los Angeles in 1986, and Shabana Akhtar – torched the flame of the games that would remain lit till March 10.

Speaking on the occasion, Mr Sharif said the festival was aimed at scouting talented players in all the sporting disciplines.

He said the PML-N’s provincial government was taking steps to involve the young lot in healthy activities and over 100,000 laptops were being distributed among the talented students of the province was one of these steps.

Mr Sharif said he was pleased to see that thousands of players participating in the festival. It was indeed a great success of the organisers, he added.

He said the winners of the final round would be honoured with cash prizes totalling worth Rs20 million. He praised the efforts of all those who had contributed to making the festival successful.

Earlier, the athletes donning colourful kits took oath from the chief minister to maintain good sportsmanship during the festival.

A musical programme was part of the opening ceremony. Different bands enthralled the audiences while dancers performed traditional ‘luddi’ and ‘bhangra’ dances and enthusiastic artists dressed in folk attire played on drums. A group of gymnasts also displayed their performance.

The athletes belonging to far-off districts showed excitement for participating in such a huge sporting gala and expressed their hope that the government would provide more opportunities to the youngsters.

Farzana Saleem, an athlete from Dera Ghazi Khan, said that she was very happy for being a participant of such a big event.

Kausar Naz, a badminton player from Faisalabad, said such competitions would encourage youngsters to come forward and get their talent recognised.

Hamza Ali, a hockey player from Sialkot, said he was enjoying all his moments in the festival. He said though there were some shortcomings at the union council (UC) and tehsil level but hopefully that would not surface at this level.

Adeel Ahmed, a football player from Bahawalpur, said the chief minister should have come on time to inaugurate the games.

The chief minister’s arrival almost three hours behind the scheduled time was not a good example, he added.

As soon as the opening ceremony concluded, athletes were served with food. At Gate No.6 (Rasheed Junior Gate), some of the athletes scrambled to get food and in that attempt they turned into an unruly mob.

The police had taken over the entire Nishter Sports Complex from the midday and had almost sealed all the entrances and exits in the evening when the chief minister was due to arrive.

There are some reports that all the district governments had tasked the MPAs with bringing at least 2,000 spectators to the stadium to show the event “more successful”.

In the final round of the festival, sporting competitions will be held separately for general public, high schools (boys and girls), colleges (male, female), universities and blind and special persons.

Meanwhile, organisers have claimed that overall 650,000 sportspersons partook in all the phases of the festival, which was a big achievement.

The final round, in which the competitions in 15 different games have been planned, will be held till March 10.

The festival began at 3,464 UCs across the province on Jan 1 in seven disciplines i.e. athletics, badminton, cricket (tennis ball), football, hockey, volleyball and kabaddi.

Though there were many complaints about poor standard of games at different stages, the Punjab Sports Board went ahead to hold it at tehsil level in which karate and cricket were also included.

As many as 13 sports were included in the competitions held at district and divisional level, each, before the final round started in provincial headquarters on Tuesday.