Kathmandu, October 6

Kanchhi Maya Koju set new national record on her way to winning the Kathmandu Marathon here at the Dasharath Stadium today.

The Nepal APF Club athlete completed the 42.195km distance in two hours, 50 minutes and 41 seconds to improve her own mark by more than five minutes. She held the record of 2:55:58

“I am very happy with my performance as I was really worried about it because of my hamstring injury. I had a target of matching my record but I am more than happy with this timing,” said Koju. “My coach, Sushil Narshing Rana had told me that my best time would come soon and that happened in today,” said Koju. “It could have been even better if the event was properly managed. We were forced to walk at times due to poor traffic management,” she added.

Tribhuvan Army Clubs Sarita Basi came second with the timing of three hours, 11 minutes and 14 seconds, while Nepal Police Club’s Rajpura Pachai came third in 3:24:08.

TAC athlete Hom Lal Shrestha won the men’s marathon with his personal best timing of 2:20:45. He missed to level the Kathmandu Marathon record of 2:20:44 set by NPC’s Bhumi Rai last year. Defending champion Rai came third in 2:24:31, finishing behind second-placed Rajan Khatri (2:23:33) of TAC.

Top three athletes in marathon received Rs 50,000, Rs 20,000 and Rs 15,000 respectively.

The poor management forced the organisers to change the half marathon into road race after the athletes missed the route and ran around more than a kilometre less than the 21km course. APF athlete Gopi Chandra Parki won the title finishing ahead of TAC’s Ramji Basnet and APF’s Santosh Bikram Bista. In women’s section, Bisworupa Buda of TAC came first ahead of APF athletes Brindra Shrestha and Pushpa Bhandari.

Likewise, Ajit Yadav and Santoshi Shrestha won the 5km races. More than four thousand athletes participated in the event, that featured six categories, organised by Kathmandu Marathon.