Doha, December 12:

Deepak Shrestha was close to win the karate bronze medal but conceded too many points in the last moment and lost 5-7 in the 60kg kumite against Hsiang Chen Huang of Taipei here at the 15th Asian Games.

Shrestha was heading towards a comfortable win for the bronze medal with 5-2 lead, but with 40 seconds left, he conceded points and lost the match. Shrestha was lucky to get the chance to fight for the bronze after he was beaten by Kunasilan Lakanathan of Malaysia 4-5 in the quarter-final, his first bout after having a first round bye. He was assured for the bronze medal qualifier after Lakanathan reached the final. Shrestha also had a bye in the first qualifying match and beat Sang Ho Park of Korea 8-5 in the next round setting up the final bronze-medal fight.

Sulochana Sijakhwa returned empty handed after Hoang Ngan Nguyen of Vietnam beat her 5-0 in the Women’s Individual Karate Kata. Sijakhwa beat four competitors on her way to the semi-finals. She beat Ziba Akhtari of Afghanistan in the preliminary round. The 10th South Asian Games gold medallist, Sijakhwa had to compete twice in the quarter-final because her opponent in the semi-finals was disqualified and she was tied again with Sri Lanka’s Sanjeewani Lakmal Ranasingha Ranasinghe Peelige despite already wining the round.

She beat the Sri Lankan 5-0 only to lose against the Vietnamese. In the bronze medal match, Sijakhwa lost 0-5 to Pui Si Cheung of Macau.

In the Women’s U-48kg Kumite, Krishna Kala KC was ousted from the preliminary round by Man I Kou of Macau. Tomoko Araga of Japan defeated the 10th SAG silver medallist Amrita Shakya 8-0 in the Women’s U-53kg. Since the Japanese reached the final, Shakya had an opportunity to fight for the bronze qualifier but lost to Sahar Shaheen of Syria.

The 10th SAG silver medallist Ram Limbu also lost in the first round to Alijon Sarimasqov of Tajikistan 7-5 in the men’s U-55kg event.

Nepali wushu players continued with their lowly performance today. In the men’s Changquan Daoshu (Broad-sword), Bikash Gurung scored just 7.70 points. In Changquan (Long-fist), Gurung had scored 7.10 points on Monday. In men’s Taijiquan (Shadow boxing), Macha Ratna Maharjan scored the lowest score (5.60) of all the participants.

Bhuwan Shrestha, who finished last with 8.12 points in the women’s Changquan on Monday, scored 6.75 points in Long-fist today to finish last today as well.

In chess, Nepal earned one more point despite losing against Japan 1-2 in the Mixed Team Classical Chess played under the Swiss League method. Bilam Lal Shrestha defeated Ryosuke Nanjo while Surbir Lama and Monalisa Khamboo lost their games. Lama lost to Shinya Kojima and Khamboo lost to Emiko Nakagawa.