Rio Olympics: Nepali athletes to compete on Tuesday

Kathmandu, Aug 9: Three Nepali athletes are competing in different three sports competitions in the ongoing Summer Olympics underway in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil on Tuesday.

They are Jeet Bahadur Moktan in the male 70-metre archery, Phupu Lhamu Khatri in the under 63-kilos weight group in judo and Shirish Gurun in the 100 metres swimming backstroke.

Moktan will compete against Atanu Das of India. The event starts at 5.21 pm on Tuesday as per the Nepal Standard Time. Before this, Moktan was placed in the 60th position with a score of 607 points. The 36-year-old Moktan will enter the last 16th position if he can edge the Indian player on the basis of points. He will have to be selected from the final 16 place to enter the finals. The Indian archer Atanu is in the fifth place with a score of 683.

Similarly, Khatri is taking on Meriset Ispinosha of Cuba in the first leg of the competition on Tuesday. A gold medalist of the 12th South Asian Games, Khatri is competing in the under-63 kilo weight group. Thirty-six athletes are competing under this weight category. Khatri will enter the last 16 if she is able to beat her Cuban contender.
The 21-year-old Khatri had taken five-month training for the Rio Olympics in the Hungarian capital, Budapest, under the Olympics scholarship.

Before her move to Rio, Phupu said that her target would be to last for five minutes in the bout in the Olympics.
In the second round, the winner of the match between Phupu and Ispinosa will take on Israeli Yardan Gerbi, who had clinched gold medal in the World Championship.

There will be total 14 competitions in Judo which includes seven in the male category and seven in the female. Some 390 athletes belonging to 136 nations are taking part in the competition.

Likewise, Sirish Gurung is also competing in the male 100-metre backstroke and he has been on training in Bangkok since nine months back.
Nepal first runner-up

Nepal has clinched second position in the Second International Karate Championship held in Calcutta of India. Nepal bags 12 gold medals, five silver and 10 copper medals to clinch the position.

On the last day, Mandira Thapa of Nepal won gold medal towards Junior U-19 Women’s Singles. However, she clinched bronze medal towards Kumure. RSS