Boxing

DHAKA: Ajit Gurung remained within a victory of grabbing a gold medal in boxing on Sunday. Ajit defeated Mohammad Aziz of Afghanistan in the competitive Light Weight (60kg) category semi-final 10-9. The Nepali boxer will play for the gold against Mohammad Javel of Bangladesh on Monday. Another boxer Laxman, however, had to content with a bronze going down heavily against the Asian Championship gold medallist Suranjoy Sing of India in the Fly Weight (51kg) category in semis. Coach Prachanda Sharma forced Laxman to take retirement trailing 8-0 in the third round.

Athletics

DHAKA: Athletes Keshari Chaudhary and Dhirendra Chaudhary set new national records in an otherwise disappointing outing of Nepal on Sunday. Keshari set a new high jump national record with a leap of 1.69 metres breaking her own mark of 1.56m but finished fourth. Dhirendra also set a new 110m hurdles national record timing 16.13sec, breaking the previous mark of 16.17sec set by Rajendra Kunwar in 1999 in Kathmandu.

Swimming

DHAKA: Nepal’s poor show in the pool continued on the second day as well. Oshin Bharati came seventh in the women’s 50m backstroke finals in 39.57s. Sailesh Rana also ended up seventh in the men’s 100m backstroke finals in 1:16.24.

Archery

DHAKA: Nepali archers set dates with Bhutan for bronze medal clash. The Nepali team went down to Bangladesh in the final round with Ashim Sherchan, Prem Prasad Pun and Prem Moktan scoring 202, 218 and 228 points respectively.

Taekwondo

DHAKA: Nepal earned just one bronze in taekwondo on Sunday. Of the three players in fray, only Dan Bahadur Airie won bronze while Ramesh Kumar Shrestha and Sabina Maharjan lost their quarter-final bouts. Dan defeated Kusung Eangdi of Bhutan 4-3 in the men’s U-74kg quarter-final but lost 4-9 against Rizwan Islam of Pakistan in the semi-finals. Ramesh lost against Anand Pandia Rajan of India 7-11 in the men’s U-80kg category, while Sabina lost 3-2 against Pakistani opponent Samiya Imdad in the U-49kg section.

Wrestling

DHAKA: Nepali wrestlers did not fare well as both Mukhtar Alam and Bunni Lal Yadav lost their matches. Mukhtar lost the 60kg category match against the Sri Lankan opponent before suffering yet another defeat against an Afghan opponent in the battle for a bronze. Bunni Lal was beaten by a Bangladeshi wrestler in the 74kg category.

Cricket

DHAKA: Nepal lost the bronze medal deciding Twenty20 cricket match against Pakistan by two wickets on Sunday. Nepal scored 147-6 before Pakistan surpassed the total losing eight wickets in 19.3 overs. Pradeep Airee top scored for Nepal with 45-ball 52 while skipper Gyanendra Malla (30), Subash Khakurel (25) and Anil Kumar Mandal contributed valuable runs. Nepal came close to a remarkable win by reducing Pakistan to 121-8 by the 17th over. But Rameer Alam scored an unbeaten 33 off 20 and Shoib Khaliq made 20-ball 30 to avoid the upset. Chandra Saud took three wickets while Gyanendra claimed two and Amrit Bhattarai and Pradeep Airee grabbed one apiece.