The much politicized-cum-sport event – the Punjab Sports Festival -- ended in Lahore this past week with some success and failures.

The huge exercise, which started in January at the union council level in the province, eventually ended with competitions in 13 sports held in different categories of men, women, general public, universities and colleges levels in Lahore on March 9.

The most successful event was the marathon race which attracted a good number of professional and amateur runners.

In fact, the marathon and the family fun race were the biggest achievements of the whole exercise while other sports events failed to attract the attention of the masses.

The government should arrange such races at the divisional level and far-flung areas with heavy cash prizes.

However, injuries to some organizers, journalists and athletes during the marathon race due to falling of big advertisement boards left a bad taste. One such big board installed at the Nishtar Sports Complex by organizers left some passersby, including two children, injured seriously.

A huge advertisement board fell at the finishing point of the race in the Punjab Stadium, causing injuries to a journalist and some athletes.

An official of the Punjab Sports Board (PSB) told Dawn that the total cost of the two fallen advertisement boards was Rs5.3 million. Obviously, the contractors had compromised the safety measures, but the PSB did not bother to launch any inquiry to fix the responsibility.

The PSB had only tried to settle down the issue by offering Rs25,000 each to the parents of the two injured children.

In another event, the PSB took immediate action when official Ghaffar Gujjar wrangled with the manager of the Sahiwal team during the race of the special children. Ghaffar was trying to prevent officials of teams from coming onto the track during the race of blind competitors on wheelchairs to avoid any mishap.

Earlier, one of the blind competitors could hardly safe himself from hitting a wall as he had gone far ahead after touching the finishing line.

Since the electronic media had recorded the ugly scene the PSB was forced to form an inquiry committee headed by Aamir Jalil and the decision was announced within 24 hours.

Next day, both parties appeared before the committee and tendered their apology, claiming they had settled the issue amicably. But the committee took the plea that since their irresponsible act had defamed the event, they would not be allowed to organize any sports event for one year as punishment.

Meanwhile, the entire staff of the PSB, who had been working till midnight for the last three months to make the festival a success, is rather distressed as the provincial government has decided to hold the closing ceremony of the festival on March 17.

The decision implies that they will have to continue their work to make arrangements for the closing ceremony.

Some 85 PSB daily wage earners are expecting an announcement from Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif about regularizing of their jobs.

Moreover, the decision to delay the closing ceremony for one week will put an extra burden on the national exchequer as all winning teams, which have returned to their respective divisions, will have to return to Lahore to receive their prizes.

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LAHORE may be the venue for the international cricket after three years as reports are that the Bangladesh Cricket Board is ready to send its national team to Pakistan provided Lahore hosts all the three ODI matches. The ICC had declared Pakistan a no go area for all its affiliated countries after the killing of eight policemen and injuring of some Sri Lankan players by terrorists in Lahore in 2009.

But this past week, a nine-member security delegation of Bangladesh visited Rawalpindi, Karachi and Lahore to inspect the security affairs to give a green signal to its national team to tour Pakistan.

It was later disclosed that Bangladesh has selected Lahore as venue for the series, although it was in Lahore that the Sri Lankan team had been attacked in 2009.

If both countries agree for the tour, it may pave the way for home series against other countries as well, and hopefully, this time the security agencies will not make any blunder in providing security to visitors.