At the 18th Asian Games in Jakarta, Nepal finally wins it first silverware and finish its medal drought. Paragliding was introduced for the first time in Asian games in Indonesia in its 18th edition. Nepal was represented by the team of Bijay Gautam, Bimal Adhikari, Sushil Gurung, Ukesh Gurung and Bimal Thapa in this event.
There was fantastic turnaround in the final day. In the previous day, Nepal finished fifth and was 768 points behind Japan. There was no way for Nepal to win anything from this event but the final day, Nepal made an impressive comeback. Nepal added 2797 points in the final day, that was 740 more than what Japan did in its final day. At the end, Nepal just missed the goal medal by 27 points to Japan. Japan took the Gold win 11,391 points. The bronze was won by Indonesia with the score of 10,873 points.
Nepal's coach after missing the Gold Medal narrowly said
“The joy of winning a medal gave goosebumps to most of us. It is a historic achievement. It means a lot to all, especially because our other players failed to win medals despite their best efforts. This victory will motive other players to do well in the future,”
Nepal haven't been doing well in Asian games recently, and hardly managing just one medal. It is also second silver in Asian games for Nepal. Also Nepal won 22 bronze medals previously in its history. The first ever silver medal was won in taekwondoka by Sabita Rajbhandari in 1998 Asian games. Nepal used to get some medals in taekwondo(14 medals), boxing(6 medals) and Karate(3 medals) but it had faded away. In this Asian Games, Nepal had 187 players competing in 29 sports but returned empty handed.
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