Liaqat clinches 100m race at athletics event

Army win men’s category of national championship.

KARACHI: Army’s Liaqat Ali and Najma Parveen of Wapda emerged as the fastest male and female athletes at the National Athletics Championship, winning their respective 100-metres (m) at the Jinnah Stadium in Islamabad.

According to information provided by the Athletics Federation of Pakistan (AFP), Army won the overall men’s event with a total of 15 gold medals and 441 points. Wapda clinched the overall women’s event after collecting 18 gold medals and 414 points.

Liaqat won his 100m race after clocking 10.65 seconds, ahead of his teammate Mohammad Imran who timed 10.8 seconds. Wapda’s Hafiz Safdar clinched a bronze medal with 10.94.

Army continued their dominance in the 200m sprint, with Ali bagging another gold medal after timing 21.25 seconds with Imran following in second place and Islamabad’s Umer Hafeez completing the podium.

Wapda managed to win their only gold medal in the men’s championship yesterday when Asad Iqbal  finished first in the 400m race.

In the women’s events, Wapda’s Parveen was declared the best female athlete after collecting four gold medals. She won the 100m sprint with a time 12.49 seconds ahead of HEC’s Sahibe Asar and Punjab’s Shehrish Asghar.

Parveen won gold medals in the 200m and 400m races, while teammate Rabia Ashiq also won three individual gold medals in 800m, 1,500m and 5,000m races.

In the overall rankings, Wapda maintained their supremacy with a total of 23 gold medals and 609 points ahead of Army and PAF.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 27^th, 2013.