Nepal Sports Journalists Forum

Taekwondo ace Deepak Bista retained NSJF LG Male Player of the Year (PoY) Award announced amidst a ceremony at the Nepal Academy Hall, Kamaladi on Wednesday. Deepak had also won the award last year but could not receive the award himself as he was in South Korea for training.

Deepak represented Nepal in the last month’s Beijing Olympics 2008 and is only the second Nepali player to qualify for the summer games. Deepak won bronze in Vietnam in the Asian Qualifying Championship and was declared the best fighter of the qualifiers. Deepak, who has also won three gold medals in the last three South Asian Games has already said that he will retire from the sport after the next SA Games.

“I’m very happy to win this award and would like to dedicate this award to my family, Olympic Committee and the taekwondo associaiton,” said Deepak. Deepak also has two bronze medals in the Asian Games in his medal tally and won a silver in the First World Cultural Festival held in Korea. The other nominees for the award were football’s Ramesh Budhathoki and Jumanu Rai, cricket’s Paras Khadka, and Prem Prasad Pun of archery.

Cricket and badminton player Nary Thapa won the Female PoY Award beating Bibidha Rimal and Saila Rana of swimming, Jhanta Katuwal of weightlifting and cricket’s Nira Rajopadhyaya.

Nepali women’s team captain Nary led the team to the final of the ACC Women’s Tournament, taking 12 wickets in five matches at an impressive economy rate of 1.26. She was also declared the Best Emerging Asian Women Cricketer of the Year by the Asian Cricket Council.

NSJF honored Pokhara’s Sahara Club for its contribution in Nepali Sports sector and also in social work. Sahara’s stand-in president Keshav Baral received the award and thanked NSJF for recognizing Sahara’s contribution. “Sahara is now planning to establish a football academy for orphans and this award will definitely encourage us,” Baral said.

Meanwhile, Cricket Association of Nepal’s former president Jaya Kumar Nath Shah was honored with the Lifetime Achievement Award for his contribution in Nepali cricket. “This award is a very special one to me,” thanked Shah who also decided to hand over Rs 15,000 that he won to the Prime Minister’s Disaster Relief Fund for the Koshi flood victims.

Jumanu Rai won the newly added Popular Player of the Year category. In a total of 149,359 SMS votes, Jumanu received 65,359 votes. Nepal and Nepal Police Club (NPC) forward Jumanu has struck a total of 10 goals this year including six for the country. Basketball player Bipendra Maharjan, footballer Anil Gurung, Nary Thapa and cricketer Parash Khadka were the other nominees in the category.

Likewise, Nepal and NPC football team coach Birat Krishna Shrestha was the Coach of the Year ahead of women cricket team’s coach Junga Bahadur Thapa, U-19 cricket coach Roy Dias, archery’s Yogendra Sherchan and taekwondo’s South Korean coach Kwon Hyouk Joung.

U-19 cricket captain Paras won the Young PoY Award before missing out on both the best male and popular categories. Paras led Nepal to victory in the ACC Elite Cup to qualify for the Youth World Cup for the fifth time in a row. In the competition, Nepal lost to West Indies in the Plate Championship final but Paras was in contention for the Player of the Tournament award until the last match.

Paras beat NPC goalie Ritesh Thapa, fellow cricketer Amrit Bhattarai, taekwondo player Anju Raut and golfer Shiva Ram Shrestha for the award. The best players in the male and female categories also pocketed Rs 25,000 each while the other category winners pursed Rs 15,000 each. NSJF also picked one of the voters in the Popular Player of the Year category. Prateek Gurung, the owner of the lucky number 9846029637, will get an LG mobile set.

Nepal Sports Journalists Forum (NSJF) announced the nominees for four categories of the NSJF LG Player of the Year Awards 2064 on Wednesday.

Taekwondo ace Deepak Bista will compete against footballers Ramesh Budhathoki, Jumanu Rai, cricketer Paras Khadka and Prem Prasad Pun of archery for the PoY Male Award. Deepak, who won the award last year, was nominated for his Olympics qualifying bronze medal in Asian Qualifying in Vietnam last year. He was also declared the best player of the event.

Nepal Police Club captain Ramesh scored two vital goals to guide his team to the final of the AFC President’s Cup in Pakistan and won the Aaha Cup title. Jumanu, also from NPC, was a key player who scored three goals in the President Cup and two in Aaha. He was a key striker of the Nepali national team. Prem won a gold and three silver medals at the South Asian Archery Championship in India.

Paras has been considered for the award for his leading performance as the U-19 captain. He helped Nepal win the ACC U-19 Elite Cup with man-of-the-series winning performance and guided Nepal to the plate final in the Youth World Cup. He also helped Kathmandu win national U-19 and was man-of-the-series in Kathmandu’s maiden senior domestic championship victory.

In female category, swimming’s Bibidha Rimal, who won a bronze in South Asian Championship and two golds in nationals will compete against Shaila Rana, also from swimming among others. Shaila won eight gold medals and a silver in the nationals breaking two national records. Other nominees include Nary Thapa, the national cricket skipper, who helped Nepal reach the final of the ACC Women’s Cup. Nary was also declared the best bowler of the event. The multi-talented teenager also won gold medals in U1-6 and U-19 singles of national badminton.

Nira Rajopadhyay of cricket and Jhanta Katuwal of weightlifting are also nominated. Nira was a key bowler of Nepali cricket team taking 10 wickets in five matches in ACC Women’s Cup while Jhanta is the first Nepali women to qualify for an international weightlifting event and broke six national records in the national championship.

The nominees in the best youth player are Paras and Amrit Bhattarai of cricket, Ritesh Thapa of football, Anju Rawat of ITF taekwondo and Shiva Ram Shrestha of golf. Amrit was a key bowler of U-19 national team that won the ACC U-19 Elite Cup and reached the plate final of the Youth World Cup.

Photo:www.nepalsportsphoto.com

Goalkeeper Ritesh, also of NPC, was on the limelight for his brilliant performance in the AFC President’s Cup and FIFA World Cup qualifiers against Oman. Anju won a bronze in the English Open Taekwondo Championship in United Kingdom and was declared the best ITF player by her association. Shiva Ram is the first Nepali golfer to qualify for the Professional Golf Tour of India and also won the CMS Cup in domestic circle.

Birat Krishna Shrestha, the NPC football coach, women cricket’s coach Jung Bahadur Thapa, U-19 cricket coach Roy Dias and archery’s Yogendra Sherchan will vie for the Coach of the Year Award with last year’s winner taekwondo’s South Korean coach Kwon Hoyuk Joung.

The NSJF LG PoY Awards will be held on September 10 at the Nepal Academy Hall.