Army to lift Trophy as National Games close today

KARACHI: The 34th National Games will be formally closed at what could be a brief ceremony at the Ayub Sports Complex Quetta on Tuesday (today).

The ceremony will begin at 3pm and will last until 4pm. President of Pakistan Dr Arif Alvi will grace the occasion as chief guest. He will hand over the Quaid-e-Azam Trophy to Army who have lifted the trophy almost every time since the inception of the Games just after the independence of Pakistan.

With some medals of athletics and table tennis yet to be decided, at the time this report was filed, Army were leading with 189 gold medals, 126 silver and 63 bronze. WAPDA were trailing second with 105 gold, 93 silver and 78 bronze medals.

Navy, with 28 gold, 32 silver and 48 bronze, were at the third place. In weightlifting 109kg, Usman Amjad Rathore of WAPDA got gold, Ghulam Rasool of Army picked silver while Faizan Attari of HEC claimed bronze.

Table Tennis

Army’s Shah Khan and Haiqa Hasan claimed the crowns of the men’s and women’s singles, respectively, of the table tennis event of the 34th National Games in Quetta on Monday.

In the men’s singles final, Shah Khan of Army downed WAPDA’s highly experienced and former international Asim Qureshi 4-1 with the game score being 11-5, 11-9, 11-7, 9-11 and 11-9.

Quetta had been allotted the Games in 2012, the year in which Punjab had hosted the 32nd National Games.

Quetta were to host the 33rd National Games but it could not keep the time-frame due to various reasons, mostly security issues, and the Games were postponed several times.