Punjab swimmers set three new records on day one

National Boys Swimming begins

By Our correspondent

LAHORE: 24th National Boys Age Group Swimming Championship got underway at Punjab International Swimming Complex on Friday. DG Sports Punjab Adnan Arshad Aulakh inaugurated the championship.

The major feature of the opening day was three national swimming records established by Punjab’s young swimmers - Zain Younis, Ibraheem Rasheed and Daniyal Ghulam Nabi. Punjab’s Zain Younis created new national swimming record in 50m Freestyle U-16 contest with the timing of 25.88. Ibraheem Rasheed wrote his name in record books when he broke previous record in 200m Freestyle U-14 competition with the new timing of 2.17.76. Daniyal Ghulam Nabi excelled in 100m Breaststroke U-14 event and set new national swimming record. He completed his distance in 1.13.70 time. Young swimmers of various age group categories offered wonderful performances on the opening day and won huge appreciation from the crowd and guests of honour.

While talking to media on this occasion, DG Sports Punjab Adnan Arshad Aulakh welcomed the participants of Swimming Championship saying that it’s a great honour for us to host young swimmers from across the country. Answering a question, Aulakh said Sports Board Punjab will continue to hold more sports events with collaboration of Punjab sports associations in future. “The main purpose of this kind of championships is to trace young talented players from all parts of the country”.

“The Sports School project of Sports Board Punjab has been approved and it will start working in near future”.

Chief Patron Punjab Swimming Association Zoraiz Lashari, Prof Atif Shafiq of GCU Lahore, swimming coach Rafi-uz-Zaman and a large number of young swimmers from Punjab, Sindh, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Balochistan, Gilgit Baltistan and Islamabad were also present on this occasion. Adnan Arshad Aulakh also distributed medals among the prominent performers after the day one competitions.

Following are the opening day results:

50m Backstroke U-16: 1. Abdullah Ashfaq (Pjb), 2. M Hassan (Pjb), 3. Abdullah Bengali (Sindh)

100m Breaststroke U-14: 1. Daniyal Ghulam Nabi (Pjb), 2. Hamza (Pjb), 3. Ryaan Adnan Ali (Sindh)

4x200m Freestyle U-16: 1. Hamza, Zeeshan, Najib, Sameer (Sindh), 2. Abdullah, Hassan, Feroze, Adeel (Pjb) 3. Faras, Tariq, Mujtaba, Haris (KPK)

50m Freestyle U-16: 1. Zain Younis (Pjb), 2. Adeel Razzaq (Pjb), 3. Najib Khurram (Sindh)

200m Freestyle U-14: 1. Ibraheem Rasheed (Pjb), 2. Taha Anver Ali (Sindh) 3. Mikail Faisal Ijaz (Pjb)

400m Freestyle U-16: 1. Zeeshan Abbas (Sindh), 2. Sameer Asif (Sindh), 3. Abdullah Salman (Pjb)

200m Backstroke U-14: 1. Ahmed Durrani (KPK), 2. Saif Khurram (Sindh), 3. Hamza Asif (Pjb)

100m Butterfly U-12: 1. Syed Azlan Sohail (Sindh), 2. Mohid Sadiq Lone (Pjb), 3. Suleman Babar (Pjb).