Guwahati, February 12

Nepali marathon runners made disappointing performance in the 12th South Asian Games at the Indira Gandhi Athletics Stadium today.

Bhumi Raj Rai was around eight behind his personal best, while another participant Khim Bahadur Khatri came sixth among eight athletes who ompleted the race. Bhutan and Afghanistan athletes did not finish the race in the 10-man field.

The Nepal APF Club athlete Rai, who was expected to win gold medal in the long distance race, completed the 42.195km race in two hours, 32 minutes and 21 seconds. His personal best was 2:24:32, set during his fifth-place finish in the Asian Marathon Championship in Hong Kong in 2015. Khatri was sixth in 2:39:56.

Nepal has a rich history in long distance race, with a total of five gold, four silver and five bronze medals in the history of marathon. This is the first time Nepal remained empty-handed in marathon. Baikuntha Manandhar won gold in first three editions with record timing of 2:15:03, while Rajendra Bhandari won gold in the previous edition of the Games in Dhaka although the organisers later changed that to Road Race because of mistake in course measurement.

This time the organisers set a different course, a lap of 10 kilometres around the stadium and Nepali athletes found it hard to cope with the pressure from the opponents. “Our players raised their pace in early stage of the race to go along with the leaders and they were unable to keep the tempo till the end,” said chief coach Sushil Narshing Rana.

India’s Nitendra Singh Rawat won gold medal in 2:15:18, while Sri Lanka’s Cooray Anuradha Indra was second in 2:15:19 and India’s Kheta Ram came third in 2:21:14. Rana said the Nepali athletes would not have been able to touch medal even if they had finished in their personal best timing. “We had hoped to finish the race inside two hours and 21 minutes but the Indian and Sri Lankan athletes came way ahead of that of time,” said Rana.

In women’s section, Sworupa Khadka finished fifth in three hours, 12 minutes and 01 seconds, finishing with the worst time of her career. Another player, Pushpa Bhandari withdrew after 10 kilometres because of problems in her muscles. Kavitha Raut of India won gold in 2:38:38, while Sri Lanka’s NG Rajasekara bagged silver in 2:50:47 and her teammate BGL Anuradhi was third in 2:52:15. The fourth-placed athlete Jyothi Gawati of India was fourth in 2:54:33, which was 18 minutes better than Nepal’s Khadka.

Khadka said she did not receive the confirmation on time and training period was not enough. “I needed at least six months to prepare for the Games but the Nepali officials were late to confirm my participation,” said the 38-year-old Khadka, who has been living in New York since 1997. “And when the participation was confirmed, the weather conditions in the USA hampered my preparations,” she added.

Khadka, whose personal best timing is 2:57:13 set in the Chicago Marathon in 2013, said her performance in Guwahati was the worst of her career. “I have run around 18 marathon races since 2010 and today was the worst day of my career as I performed very bad,” said Khadka. “The course also affected the performance as we had to take too many sharp turns and that also cost me a lot of time. May be it’s my bad luck, but I have not been able to perform well whenever I represent the country,” she said.

Coach Rana said he was not expecting any medal from the women’s section. “We had no hopes of winning medals in women’s marathon but I was expecting better performance from Sworupa Khadka,” said Rana. “But she also failed to meet the expectation.”

Nepal wrapped up the athletics competition with just one medal and two national records but coach Rana was not disappointed with the outcome. “It is not that we performed badly in the South Asian Games. The players put up good performance provided their standard and preparations. We have to realize that athletes from other countries have improved drastically,” he added. “We calculated our chances based on other athletes’ performance in previous meetings but we were totally wrong to do so. The level of athletes from other nations has gone very high, while we remained at the same level,” Rana added.

A total of 22 players took part in 27 events and Hari Kumar Rimal was the lone medallist. Rimal won bronze medal in 5000m in his personal best time of 14 minutes and 32.18 seconds, while the women’s team shattered the national record in 4X400m relay coming in four minutes and 08.20 seconds breaking the previous mark of 4:08.91.

Rimal said he was not satisfied with his and teammates performance. “Once again, it is proved that we are very weak in South Asia,” said Rimal. “We need to have a revolution in athletics, otherwise we will not be able to perform event to this mark in the next editions. The players need modern training as we are doing the same for the last 10 years. If we are not able to change the way of training, we will be the worst team in the days to come,” he added.

Shooting

Nepal shooters finished fifth in the 10m Air Rifle team event at the Kahilipara Shooting Range here on Friday. The team of Olympian Tikaram Shrestha, Pawan Ghimire and Krishna Bahadur Ghorasaini accumulated 1745.9 points. Shrestha scored 590.6 points, while Ghimire scored 588.8 and Ghorasaini scored 566.5 points. India won gold medal with the total score of 1863.4 points, while Bangladesh finished second with 1845.8 points and Sri Lanka came third with 1824.2 points. On Thursday, women shooters crashed out from first round in 10m Air Pistol. Olympian Sneha Rana top scored with 403.3 points, while Asmita Rai (398.6) and Phool Maya Kyapchhaki (396.8) remained behind as Nepal finished fifth in six-team competition. Indian shooter clean swept the individual category.

Handball

Nepal lost both men and women’s handball matches in Sonapur on Friday. In men’s section, Pakistan outplayed Nepal 50-15. Pakistan took a comfortable 24-5 lead in first half, while Nepal added 10 goals against Pakistan’s 26 in the latter half. In women’s section, hosts India thrashed Nepal 47-20. Despite losing the match, Nepali team has a chance to advance to the semi-finals. Nepal, India and Sri Lanka are in Group A and if India beat Sri Lanka, Nepal will advance to the last four.

Kabaddi

Nepali women’s kabaddi team registered a win and suffered a defeat at the RG Baruah Sports Complex in Ulubari on Friday. Nepal thrashed Pakistan 41-10 in the second match of the day. Nepal took a 23-2 lead in the first half before finishing the second half with the score of 18-8. Earlier, in the first match, Sri Lanka beat Nepal by 21-13. Nepal will take on Bangladesh in the last league match on Saturday. Nepali men’s team faced second defeat at the hands of India. Hosts India thrashed Nepal 47-23 in their second match of the regional games. Nepal managed to score 11 against 19 of India in the first half, while India scored 28-12 in the second half. Nepali men’s team will take on Sri Lanka and Bangladesh on Saturday. Top four teams will qualify for the semi-finals.