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Taekwondo players chant “Nepal Ama Ko Jai” in a vibrant mood after their training session ends each day. Weariness does not seem to daunt the all-sweating players and their faces shine with the hope of creating history yet again.
If the past record is anything to go by (consider), there are high expectations from Nepal´s taekwondo team to bring home gold medals from the 11th South Asian Games to be held in Bangladesh from January 29 to February 9. Nepal is participating in ten weight categories in taekwondo -- six categories for men and four for women.
Taekwondo coach Subash Chandra KC is convinced that all the ten players will win gold medals in the SAG. Out of the ten players, four have the experience of participating in the 10th SAG, Colombo, while the rest also have participated in international matches.
According to KC, all of the 22 participants of Nepal won medals during the 2nd International Taekwondo Championship, Lucknow, which was held on December 20-21 last year. Nepal bagged 16 gold, 3 silver and 3 bronze medals in Lucknow. Ashish Maharjan (68 kg), Dan Bahadur Aire (74 kg) and Badri Nath Basnet (87 kg) are among the players who won gold during the event and have qualified for the 11th SAG.
The other players qualified for the upcoming SAG are Deepak Bista (87 kg), Kumar Manandhar (63 kg), Manita Shahi (57 kg) and Ayesha Shakya (53 kg), who participated in the tenth edition of the SAG in Colombo. Deepak has won three consecutive gold medals in the SAG and Manita is also a gold medalist of the tenth edition. Similarly, Ayesha and Kumar contributed a silver medal each in Colombo.
Likewise, Yan Kumari Chaulagain (46 kg) and Sabina Maharjan (49 kg), who are in the team to represent Nepal in the 11th SAG have participated in the Asian Championship while Ramesh Shrestha (80 kg), as coach KC believes, has high potential.
Chief coach Min Thapa, who assumed the responsibility a week ago to lead the Nepali taekwondo team declined to comment on the performance of the players saying, “It would be premature for me to judge the players right now.” He, however, said that the standard of Nepali players hasn´t deteriorated but foreign players have improved a lot in the recent years.
Thapa was the coach of the Nepali team during the 8th SAG, Kathmandu, when Nepal registered a historic victory by winning 14 gold medals out of 16 categories in taekwondo. He also headed the Nepali team in the ninth edition of SAG during which Nepal bagged six gold medals.
The players are in good form but are a bit wary of the players from Afghanistan. “We are doing our best but we need to be careful of Afghan players as one of them has won medal in the Olympics,” claimed Manita. Coach KC, however, informed that the Afghan players Nepal will take on are not among the best.
Nepali players won´t be facing Afghan Olympic bronze medalist Rohullah Nikpai in the SAG as no Nepali player is participating in the under-58 kg category which Nikpai usually competes in.
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