14th Central President Running Shield inaugurated in style

Kathmandu, Apr. 17: The central competition of the 14th edition of the President Running Shield (April 16 to 18) was inaugurated by President Ramchandra Paudel amid a joyful function organised at Dasharath Rangasala on Tuesday evening. 

Welcoming the participants representing seven provinces, President Paudel said, “Education and sports are two sides of the same coin. I believe that every child will perform their best in the respective sport despite the results.”

President Paudel addressed the programme at the end after watching the march past of the participants alongside some entertaining performances. The President also enjoyed an astonishing performance by the children of the Nepal Taekwondo Association.

The performances not only refreshed the crowd and dignitaries but also gave chance for the participating children to combat fatigue after a day-long event on the opening day of the tournament. 

“I believe that this tournament is a great platform to produce our country’s future stars in the field of sports. Sports are beneficial to children as they help develop the feeling of support, coordination and respect among them,” the President said, adding, “Every tier of the government should invest in sports so that athletes can earn a livelihood out of it. I also expect to increase the number of sporting events in the tournament.”

The tournament, currently, features six events – athletics, volleyball, kabaddi, wushu, taekwondo and karate – and the participants will compete for 66 gold medals in total.

A team of 115 members, of which 98 are athletes and the remaining are coaches, is representing each province and participating in the country’s biggest tournament for the junior category.

According to Tanka Lal Ghising, member-secretary at the National Sports Council, a total of 612,151 students (315,000+ male and 296,000+ female) participated in the school-level competition from 151,150 schools.

“Out of 753 local levels, only 635 organised the tournament. This is the biggest tournament for the junior category and the foundation to motivate our children towards sports,” said Ghising.

Likewise, expressing joy in seeing the local levels producing athletes and players with great determination, Minister for Youth and Sports Biraj Bhakta Shrestha said, “The next, the 15th President Running Shield will be bigger. However, we all need to unite to make it happen. The ministry will do its best and expect a similar response from others.”

Results on 1st day

The best result on the first day of the three-day tournament was of Ganesh BK from Gandaki Province. Ganesh did not only win a gold medal in the high jump, but he also set a new national junior record in the sport. 

Ganesh jumped 1.89 meters high and set a new record by breaking the earlier record of 1.77 meters set by Prabhu Tharu of Lumbini Province five years back.

Meanwhile, Abinash Sunar of Bagmati (1.75 metres jump) and Milan Bishwakarma of Lumbini (1.70 metres jump) won the silver and bronze medals in the high jump respectively.

Alongside the high jump, there are 26 sports under athletics. Of them, finals of eight athletics events concluded on Tuesday. Madhes’ Aadesh Kumar Yadav won gold in the 100-metre race in male and Sudur Pashchim’s Ritu Joshi won gold in the 100-metre race in female category.

Gandaki’s Badal Karki and Karnali’s Kalpana Budha won gold in the 1,500-metre race in the male and female categories respectively. 

Likewise, Lumbin’s Rohit Kumar Gupta and Karnali’s Sarita Khadka bagged a gold each in the male and female categories of the 400-metre race respectively.