Athletes, judokas shine as Punjab grab 14 golds on opening day
ISLAMABAD: Seven gold medals in track and field and five in judo events on the opening day of competition at the Quaid-i-Azam Inter-provincial Youth Games saw Punjab top the medals table on Tuesday.
With 34 medals overall, comprising 14 gold, 12 silver and eight bronze, Punjab had a comfortable lead over second-placed Balochistan (5-7-11) and third-placed Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (5-2-9).
Sindh (4-5-3) are fourth ahead of Fata (2-3-6) with Gilgit Balitistan far away in sixth with their lone gold in judo making up a grand total of three medals. Islamabad and Azad Jammu and Kashmir are tied at the bottom with identical records of a silver and four bronze.
Sindh’s sprinters left everyone trailing in their wake as they completed a men’s-women’s 100m double, adding to the men’s 800m won by Umar Sadat who won in a time of 2:01:60, narrowly edging Balochistan’s Iftikhar Ahmed (2:01:94).
There was an even smaller margin of victory in men’s 100m as Abdul Moeed Baloch finished in 10.92 to just shade Laeeq Naveed from Punjab by 0.03 seconds.
The margin of victory was more pronounced in the women’s race as Shafaq Afreen’s time of 13.26 saw her finish comfortably ahead of Punjab’s Torab Zehra (13.38).
Balochistan were also on fire on the track, winning three gold medals thanks to Nasir Ali’s victory in 16:08:70 in the men’s 5000m and a double in the men’s and women’s 400m hurdles courtesy Amir Ali and Beenish respectively.
Punjab clinched only two golds on the track — Saba winning the women’s 1500m in 5:28:94 while Rubab took the women’s 100m hurdles — but it was in the field events where they showed their supremacy.