Chinar Sports Festival kicks off in Abbottabad

To promote ingenious and traditional sport and culture events, Chinar Sports Festival kicked off at historical Kunj Football Complex on Thursday.

The three-day event is being organised under the aegis of Regional Sports Officer and District Administration Abbottabad. Various gams such as tug-of-war, kabaddi, javelin throwing, archery, stone lifting and gutkha competitions, dog rabbit race, marathon race and cycling would be played. Food and handicraft stalls, music concert and mushaira are also part of the festival.

Speaker Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly Mushtaq Ahmad Ghani, who was the chief guest at the event, said that giving these regional competitions a name of Chinar Festival is commendable because Abbottabad is called the City of Poplar (Chinaroon Ka Shehar) and there are stories of our love for the chinar trees. These games have been played by our elders, he added.

Read: Annual sports festival concludes

On the arrival of spring, a tree-planting campaign was launched in which poplar (Chinar) plants are being given priority. "We have also launched the plantation drives to make the country clean and green.

The cultural colors of Gilgit-Baltistan, Punjab, Sindh, Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa were nicely portrayed through culture dresses and performance on traditional dance on traditional songs.

The kids of Lame light Grammar Public School enthralled the sitting spectators. A karate, gymnastic demonstrations of the schools kids of Abbottabad No. 1, 2, 3 and 4 also enjoyed by the sitting spectators, followed by Gathka display and traditional "Mahiya of Hazara”.

In the two events, Tug of War Kundia XI of Tahir Munir defeated Abbottabad Blues by 2-1 while in the Kabaddi match Shado XI of Mandian Abbottabad defeated Shafique XI in a thrill-packed opening Kabaddi match by 43-41 points. International Kabaddi Referee Syed Sultan Bacha and Zahir acted as officials in the Kabaddi and tug of war.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 18^th, 2022.