Jayarani bags five gold medals as Army dominate track and field

By Pramod Joshi, Pokhara, Oct. 20: APF team was running for the national record in the women's 4x400m relay. They are aiming to break the record time of 4:02.5 minutes set by the Nepal Army during the 7th National Games in 2019. They even succeed in their target by completing the race in 3:58.64 minutes.

But their celebration was short-lived after they were disqualified for faulting during the lane change. After changing the lane before the 520 meters, the Athletics jury disqualified the relay team of the APF Club.

With the disqualification of the APF team, Nepal Army got lucky to win the gold medal despite finishing the race in second place with a time of 4:02.78 minutes.

The team led by Jayarani Tharu, Saraswoti Bhattarai, Nirmala Thapa and Kaleshi Chaudhary gave Army the women's relay gold.

With the relay win, Jayarani collected five gold medals at the track and field of Pokhara. Earlier she had won the 100m hurdles, 400m hurdles, long jump and 4x100m relay gold medals. She also set three national records. Nine new athletics records were set during the Gandaki Games.

Her team Neal Army also continued their domination in athletics at the national games by grabbing 19 gold medals. APF Club was satisfied with ten gold medals. Nepal Police, Bagmati Province and Lumbini Province bagged two gold medals each.

Nisha Tharu, Samjhana Tharu, Aruna Rijal and Ramkumari Tharu combined to give Lumbini Province the silver medal with a time of 4:14.80 minutes.

A team of Anju Khadka, Rajina Dulal, Swagata Khaiju and Santoshi Shrestha bagged the bronze medal for Bagmati with 4:22.79 minutes.

The men's 4x400m relay gold also went to the Army. Sombahadur Kumal, Ramprasad Tharu, Jeevan Chaudhary and Prakash Danuwar clocked 3:18.36 minutes to lead the race in front.

The APF team comprised of Nirpratap Mahato, Aashish Chaudhary, Shiva Raj Parki and Sandip Nepali took 3:25.82 minutes to kiss the silver medal.

The Nepal Police Club team consisting of Amrit Bot, Sahan Chandra Shah, Tekbahadur Karki and Arun Mahato Tharu pocketed the bronze medal with 3:29.35 minutes.

Shiva Raj Parki collected his third gold medal after winning the 200m race with a time of 21.91 seconds. He also bagged gold in the 100m and 4x100m relay.

Dilli Khatri of the Army was the men's triple jump winner with 13.95m. Chandra Dev Joshi of the Nepal Police with 13.55m and Sudip Mahato of Bagmati with 13.44m finished at the podium taking silver and bronze medals respectively.

Gopi Chandra Parki won the men's 5000m gold for the APF team. He clocked at 14:29.67 minutes to lead the race at the front. Durga Bahadur Budha of Karnali was .34 pulse second behind Parki to satisfy with the silver medal. Mukesh Pal of the Army with 14:36.60 minutes claimed the bronze medal.

In the women's category, Nisha Chaudhary from Lumbini province bagged her first gold medal in 200m with 25.24secs. Ramita Kumari Tharu of APF with 25.95secs and Laxmi Saud of Nepal Police with 9.91m trailed behind Chaudhary in the pecking order.

Shila Chaudhary of APF won the triple jump with 11.01m. Ramila Chaudhary of Nepal Police with 10.76m and Ranjita Rai of APF with 9.91m took silver and bronze medals respectively.  

APF clean sweeps football gold medal

APF Club clean swept the football gold medals after winning both men's and women's finals on Thursday.

APF defeated Nepal Army 6-5 in sudden death to win the men's football gold medal at the Pokhara Stadium on Thursday.

The match was decided in a tie-breaker after the regulation and added 30 minutes ended in a goalless stalemate. After Army's Seshehang Aangdembe and Suman Aryal failed to convert the penalty, APF became the champions.

Nawayug Shrestha, George Prince Karki, Bibek Basnet and Bikash Khawas scored the penalty for the Army. Nabin Lama, Awash Lamichhane, Sudip Sikhrakar, Raju Yogi, Dipesh Dhimal and Mani Kumar Lama converted the spot kick for APF.  Sanish Shrestha squandered the penalty.

APF edged past Nepal Police Club by 2-1 to win the women's final held at the ground of Waling, Syangja. Nepal's goal machine Sabitra Bhandari scored both the goals for APF in the 10th and 52nd minutes.

Niru Thapa scored the consolation goal for Police in the 73rd minute.

Army bagged bronze medal thrashing Province 1 by 7-0 in Waling.

Judo: Nepal Army defeated APF Club in the mix-team event to rule the Judo with nine gold medals at the Gandaki Games. Bagmati Province and Province 1 bagged bronze medals. Province Lumbini and Nepal Police Club were disqualified after they left the mat protesting the decisions of the jury. Nepal Police Club finished second in judo with six gold medals. Bagmati, Lumbini, Madhesh, APF, Province 1, Sudurpaschim, Karnali and NRNA were without gold medals while host Gandaki could not fetch any medals in judo.

Basketball: APF Club won the men's basketball gold by defeating Gandaki Province 81-79 in the final held today. Army defeated Bagmati 78-60 to win the silver medal.

Gandaki, however, won the men's 3-on-3 basketball gold medal defeating APF Club 21-16. Bagmati finished with bronze in the 3-on-3 overcoming Army 19-15.

Kho-Kho: Nepal Army and Lumbini Province won the title in the men's and women's kho-kho held at Pokhara Stadium today. Army defeated Lumbini by 14-10 in the men's final. Lumbini bagged women's gold by beating Army 18-16.

Kabaddi: Nepal Army defended its kabaddi title after winning the gold medal in the both men's and women's categories. Army beat Lumbini Province 41-20 in the men's final and overcame Nepal Police 30-23 in the women's final.  

Tennis: Pradip Khadka of Gandaki Province and Abhilasha Bista of Nepal Army won the gold medal winning their respective final matches at the tennis court of Pokhara Stadium.

Khadka overcame Arav Samrat Hada of NRNA 7-6, 6-3 in the men's final. Bista won the women's final by beating her teammate Ira Rawat in a straight set of 6-1, 6-2.  

Hockey: Nepal Army won the men's hockey gold in a 2-1 tie-breaker beating Nepal Police. Roshan Chaudhary and Pradip Rajbanshi scored for Army. Nabin Chhetry scored the goal for Police.

Kho-Kho: Nepal Army defeated Lumbini Province by 10-14 to win the men's Kho-Kho gold medal. The women's Kho-Kho gold went to Lumbini as they beat Army 18-16 in the final.

Volleyball: APF Club eased past Nepal Army to win the men's volleyball gold. APF won the final by 25-21, 27-25 and 26-24. Police Club outplayed Gandaki Province by 26-24, 25-14, and 25-18 to win the bronze medal.

 Samples of 40 players send for an anti-doping test

Competing clean and healthy is what matters in sports. With the competitive nature of sports, players are tempted to rise above the competition by cheating. 

When cheating takes the form of doping, it not only threatens the value of sports but also the health of the health. 

The use of steroids used to accelerate the physical power of the players is known as doping. To ensure clean and fair competition in international sports, World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) is regulating the use of steroids by players from doping tests. 

To promote the culture of clean sports, Nepal as a WADA member nation has also been practising doping tests in the National Games since the sixth national Games. 

The samples of the 40 players of different sports competing in the 9th National Games have been sent to the WADA-certified lab in Qatar. "This is the first time samples of so many players are collected for the doping test", said Doctor Gyanendra Bikram Shah, who is the secretary of the Anti-Doping Sub Committee of the National Sports Council. 

In the previous editions, samples of ten players were sent for tests at the WADA lab in New Delhi, India. 

"Such anti-doping tests help Nepali sports make clean and fair. It is also a big sampling collection in the history of South Asian Sports," said Shah, who is also a member of the South Asian Anti-Doping Committee.  

Doping has been a big problem in modern sports. The result aided by the use of performance-enhancing drugs also rob athletes, their teammates, opponents, coaches and sports fan of celebrating a true victory.

The doping also robbed Nepali runner Arjun Bhandari of the two gold medals of Colombo SAG in 2006 after he tested positive for doping. 

To check the use of steroids by the players in the 9th National games, a six-member doping committee under the leadership of Dr Nabisman Singh was formed by National Sports Council. South Asian Anti-Doping Agency is supporting the Council in the anti-doping test.

Paraglider Thapa Magar gets honorary gold medal

The death of Paraglider Nissim Thapa from an accident during the competition at the 9th National Games was a tragic day for Nepali sports. The paragliding event was cancelled after the accident. 

However, the result of the paragliding was announced based on the practice event held on October 14. 

Nepal Army's Nissim won the silver medal in the team cross-country event. 

He collapsed to death at Sarangkot while competing in the cross-country event of the paragliding sports. It was the first death that happened during the four-decade history of the National Games. 

The Nepal government also presented him with an honorary gold medal posthumously. With a banner "We will miss you," the Nepal Army team was present during the prize distribution ceremony. 

National Sports Council also announced to make of the bust of Thapa Magar at Pokhara Stadium. 

Similarly, Gandaki Province and Nepal Army won equal three-three gold medals in paragliding.