Lalitpur, September 3

Jeevan Ram Shrestha has been elected as the President of Nepal Olympic Committee (NOC) from the Elective General Assembly here today.

The assembly, originally scheduled for last month and postponed after the protest in procedures from a faction led by All Nepal Football Association Ganesh Thapa, elected a 17-member executive committee for the next four-year term. The new officials will take over from Dhruba Bahadur Pradhan-led committee from October 1.

President of Nepal Ski Association Shrestha, who is the Secretary General in the existing committee, garnered 17 out of 26 votes, while his challenger Umesh Lal Shrestha — President of Nepal Hockey Association — got nine votes. Four Vice-presidents, Dhirendra Pradhan (football), Jyoti Pradhan (tennis), Purendra Bikram Lakhe (karate) and Rajendra Bantawa (rafting) were elected unanimously along with Treasurer Ratan Kumar Tandon (Weightlifting).

In the election of Secretary General post, Lama Tendi Sherpa — Vice-president of Nepal Sports Council and President of Nepal Basketball Association — garnered 17 votes to beat Chhimi Urkyen Gurung, who received eight votes and Deep Raj Gurung (one). Nepal Boxing Association President Rajiv Shrestha was elected joint Secretary General in lottery after he and All Nepal Lawn Tennis Association President Chatura Nanda Rajvaidhya received 13 votes each.

The assembly also elected nine members Ang Dendi Sherpa (wushu), Sunil Shrestha (fencing) and Tej Gurung (handball) — who all garnered full 26 votes — along with Nilendra Raj Shrestha (triathlon), Sanjeev Tuladhar (athletics), Samim Miya Ansari (wrestling), Ashok Bajracharya (swimming), Deepak Harsha Bajracharya (judo), and Ramesh Shrestha (badminton).

Out of the 11 contestants, Binod Prajapati (kabaddi) and Dan Bahadur Tamang (volleyball) received 14 and 12 votes respectively as they failed to make the cut. Deepak Raj Gurung (archery) had withdrawn from the race yesterday.

Newly-elected President Shrestha said free Olympic movement was the challenge of the new team. “Olympic movement has always come under scrutiny, either by the government or by the friends who were not with us,” said the two-time Secretary General.

“Now as we have been able to incorporate all of them within us, we hope to take the Olympic movement to next level,” he said. “We will come ahead with a vision and betterment of sports in one of the main agendas,” added the former Member Secretary of NSC.

Earlier, outgoing President Pradhan was relieved to have found the solution of controversies that rocked the NOC for almost a decade. “It was not easy, it took a lot of hard works to take Olympic movement to this position,” said Pradhan. “We realised that Olympic movement was not possible by keeping a faction in isolation,” he added.

He argued that the NOC’s first duty was to protect the autonomy of national association affiliated to it. “NOC’s autonomy depends on the autonomy of its national associations and we always need to protect their autonomy,” he said. “Actually we came into trouble while trying to protect their autonomy in the past, otherwise shaking hands with government was not a big deal,” added Pradhan.

A total of 26 representatives — one each from 23 from Olympic sports associations and three non-Olympic ones — took part in assembly. IOC representative Waheed Kardani was the observer of the election. The new committee will take its full shape following the nomination of one vice-president and four members.