Volleyball League

KATHMANDU: Nepal Volleyball Association (NVA) is organising the first National Men’s Volleyball League from February 12. The tournament will be held in three phases — districts, regions and national level, said the organisers at a press meet on Friday. The 58 disctrict committees will select clubs for the regional tournaments in five development regions. The top regional teams — one each from the five development regions — will join two teams from Kathmandu for the national level tournament, said tournament convenor Gajendra Tamli. The top three teams from the national level tournament will then join three other — Tribhuvan Army Club, Nepal Police Club and Nepal APF Club — teams in Super Leage.

“The departmental teams were the top three clubs in the last edition of the national tournament held in Hetauda and the NVA put them in Super League directly,” said NVA President Ganga Bahadur Thapa. “From next year, we will have six each teams in ‘A’ Division and ‘B’ Division,” he added. The estimated budget for the tournament is Rs 1.5 million. — HNS

Players feted

KATHMANDU: Ideal Model School felicitated their former students Maya Gurung and Geeta Chudal, who earned name and fame in sports, on Friday. Vice President Paramananda Jha handed over the felicitation letter and Rs 5,100 each to Gurung, the first Nepali sportswoman who successfully sky-dived and Chudal, the member of the Nepali cricket team that won the ACC U-19 Women’s Championship last month. — HNS

Team departs

KATHMANDU: A six-member Nepali lawn tennis team on Friday departed for Malaysia to take part in the Group 2 tournament of the ITF Under-14 Asian Championships to be held in Kuching from January 10-21. Mina Gharti Magar, Aslesha Lissanevitch, Achal Shumsher Thapa, Sandesh Singh Rathor and Milan Rokaya will take part in the singles and doubles events. Nepal had finished third in 2004 in Myanmar and coach Surya Bhushan Bajracharya was confident of the team this time too. “We had almost one-month preparation and I hope these players will perform well,” he said. In all, 16 asian countries are taking part in the championships. — HNS