QUETTA: Having started the day with a gold tally exactly half of that of Pakistan Army, Wapda drew level with their rivals at the National Games on Friday with the country’s top-ranked badminton player Mahoor Shehzad shining on the court and gymnast Mohammad Afzal starring on the apparatus.

Mahoor won both the women’s singles and doubles events with gymnast Mohammad Afzal starring in the individual events to clinch five golds to go along with Wapda’s triumph over Army in the team event.

Wapda also beat Army to grab golds in both men’s and women’s hockey, the women’s volleyball as well as the gymnastics team event. They also won gold in men’s volleyball while Army downed Wapda in the men’s kabaddi and handball finals and also clinched six golds in boxing.

At the time of filing of this report, Army and Wapda were tied at 24 golds each. The duo also set up a gold medal clash in men’s baseball.

Wapda were utterly dominant at the Saifullah Magsi Badminton Court of the Ayub Sports Complex, winning four out of five categories.

Mahoor came from behind to overcome team-mate Ghazala Siddique 14-21, 21-14, 21-14 in the singles final before the duo combined to beat fellow Wapda pair of Saima Waqas and Khizra Rasheed 21-14, 21-17 in the doubles.

Ghazala also won the mixed doubles alongside Mohammad Ali Larosh as they downed Raja Mohammad Hasnain and Ammarah Ishtiaq 18-21, 21-17, 21-9 while Wapda duo of Irfan Saeed and Azeem Sarwar overpowered Army’s Anjum Bashir and Yasir Ali 21-15, 21-14 in the men’s doubles.

Murad Ali of Khyber Pakhtunkwa, the country’s top men’s player, denied Anjum in the singles final as he prevailed in a stirring contest 15-21, 21-17, 21-16.

Over at the Balochistan University of Information Technology, Engineering and Management Sciences, Afzal took centrestage as Wapda won the team event before racking up five golds in individual events.

They won the vault, horizontal bar, pommel horse, still rings and the parallel bar. Army were tied for gold with Wapda in the rings while they finished top in the floor exercises.

In a closely-fought men’s hockey final, Wapda came back from going down in just the fourth minute to edge Army 2-1.

Rizwan gave Army the early lead at the Nawab Ghous Bakhsh Stadium but Wapda levelled matters in the 41st through Ajaz Ahmed before Toseeq Arshad converted a 57th-minute penalty corner to secure the victory.

The women’s final was more one-sided with Wapda cruising to a 3-0 win over Army with Hamra Latif scoring twice. Skipper Iqra Javed gave Wapda the lead in the 13th minute before Hamra scored her first in the 18th before getting her second exactly half an hour later to seal the win.

Over at the Pakistan Sports Board Hall at the Ayub Stadium, Wapda’s men’s volleyball team beat PAF 25-23, 25-20, 26-24 in the final while their women overcame Army 25-19, 25-9, 20-25, 25-21.

But Wapda’s men’s handball team couldn’t make it a golden double after their women’s team had won on Thursday as they went down 26-30 to Army in the final.

The two sides will also clash for the baseball gold on Saturday after Army crushed Pakistan Police by 26 runs in their semi-final while Wapda overcame Higher Education Commission by eight runs.

There was no matching Army’s pugilists at the Ibrar Hall of the Ayub Sports Complex though.

Azher overpowered Miraza Azam of Pakistan Air Force in the men’s super heavyweight (+92kg) final while Irfan Khan took gold in the men’s heavyweight (86-92kg) category after he downed Balochistan’s Sohail.

Saif-ul-Mannan was a winner in the men’s middleweight (71-75kg) event while Gulzaib took the glory in the men’s welterweight (63.5-67kg) category.

Other boxing golds for Army came in the women’s featherweight (54-57kg) and light heavyweight (75-81kg) competitions through Fatima Zehra and Afra Khurram respectively.

Wapda’s successes in the ring came through Mubashara, in the women’s heavyweight (+81kg) and Ahsanullah, in the men’s light middleweight (67-71kg), while PAF’s Mahmood-ul-Hasan won the men’s cruiserweight (80-86kg) gold.

Published in Dawn, May 20th, 2023