RIO DE JANEIRIO: Nepali athlete Hari Kumar Rimal failed to live up to his own expectations in the men’s 5,000m heats of the Rio Olympic Games here today.

The Tribhuvan Army Club athlete finished the race in 14 minutes and 54.42 seconds, more than 22 seconds behind his personal mark. Running in the 25 Degree Celsius temperature with 69 per cent humidity at the Olympic Stadium, Rimal kept his pace up to the first four laps before falling behind the pack. His dreams of shattering the national record seemed a far cry as he even failed to finish near his personal best timing of 14:32.18.

His TAC teammate Rajendra Bhandari holds the national record of 14 minutes and 04.89 seconds, which he had set during the 2004 Athens Olympic Games. Rimal was 23rd among the 25 athletes in Heat1 finishing ahead of Mohamed Daud of Somalia and Solomon Islands’ Rosefelo Siosi. He was more than a lap behind the leading pack along with two others when rest of the players crossed the finish line. Out of the 51 athletes in the race, Rimal finished at 46th position. Top five each from two heat rounds and next five best athletes qualified for the finals.

Rimal said he pushed hard for the new national record and fell behind at the end. “I came here to break the national record and I tried my best to do so. But after early stages, I could not keep the momentum going and ended up well behind my personal mark,” Rimal told The Himalayan Times. “I ran well ahead of my pace in the beginning and that proved costly for me. I did not just try to improve my mark, I had the national record on the back of my mind. I tried my best but it did not work. Sometimes you can maintain the pace and sometimes you cannot. It was not my day today.”

Rimal, however, said he was happy to get the opportunity of representing the nation in Olympics. “Today I completed my dream of participating in the Olympics. It would have been a perfect outing had I set the new national mark,” he added. “I am disappointed as I could not achieve the target.”

Coach Pushpa Raj Ojha said Rimal could have improved the personal mark with ease had he not gone for breaking the national mark. “He pushed hard in the first four laps, he was well ahead of his timing at the early stages,” said Ojha. “It’s all about endurance, we cannot compete against the best players of the world. Rimal tried to go with their pace and he faltered at the end.”

Another athlete, Saraswati Bhattarai shattered the 26-year-old national record in women’s 1,500m on August 12. Bhattarai finished the race in four minutes and 33.94 seconds to set a new national record of 4:34.47 held by Raj Kumari Pandey since Beijing Asian Games in 1990. She broke the record by less than a second but Bhattarai ran more than six seconds faster than her personal best of 4:40.03.

Ojha said he was satisfied with the overall performance of the two athletes. “Saraswati Bhattarai broke the 26-year-old mark in 1,500m and Hari Rimal tried to get it in 5,000m. I am happy with what these two athletes have done in Olympics,” he said. Rimal had saved Nepal’s blushes in athletics in the 12th South Asian Games by winning the lone bronze medal with his personal best time of 14:32.18 in Guwahati earlier this year.

Rimal participated in 1,500m and 5,000m races in his first international tournament in the 18th Asian Championship in 2009. He represented the country in 11th SA Games in Dhaka the next year and was the member of the Nepali squad in the 16th Asian Games in Guangzhou in 2010. He then took part in 19th Asian Championship in Japan in 2011 before winning his first medal on foreign soil when he bagged golds in 5,000m and 10,000m races at 91st Malaysia Open in 2014. He has also experiences of participating in 17th Asian Games in Incheon in 2014 and IAAF World Championship in China last year.