KARACHI: The Sports and Youth Affairs Department, Government of Sindh, on Friday honoured the winners, runner-up and other participating hockey teams of the Shaheed Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto Hockey Gold Cup 2021 in a prize distribution ceremony here.

Rs 600,00 were distributed among the teams. Sindh Minister for Women Empowerment Syeda Shehla Raza presented the cash prizes at a simple ceremony held in her office.

Winners Karachi Team received Rs 200,000 while runners-up Sukkur received Rs 100,000. Besides, all the teams were awarded rupees 50,000 each as appearance money. Sindh and PHF contributed Rs 25,000 each for the appearance money.

Shehla Raza who is also GM Women’s Hockey Sindh said that the event provided very good opportunities to women to display their talent in sports. She also thanked Secretary Sports Sindh Syed Imtiaz Ali Shah for his support throughout the tournament.

“I must praise Secretary Sports here as he is an honest and dedicated person who is making tremendous efforts for promoting sports at the grass root level,” she said.

Later, Brig Zaheer, Director Army Sports presented hockey sticks to the players of the finalist teams.

It must be mentioned that the Shaheed Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto Hockey Gold Cup 2021 was held in Sukkur and all the matches were played at Sukkur Hockey Stadium. Five teams including Karachi, Jacobabad, Mirpurkhas, Benazirabad and host Sukkur participated in the tournament.

A galaxy of former Olympians and sports officials attended the opening ceremony that was held under floodlights. Prominent among them were PHF Secretary General Asif Bajwa, 1984 Los Angeles Olympic gold medalist and chief selector Manzoor Junior and President Sukkur Hockey Association Arif Mehmood.

Published in Dawn, April 17th, 2021