NSJF Pulsar Popular Player of the Year nominees

Nepal Sports Journalists Forum (NSJF) announced seven nominees for the NSJF Pulsar Popular Player of the Year (PoY) award on Wednesday.

The awards ceremony, which will also consist six other awards, will be held on September 10 amidst a function in the capital.

The popular player of the year awardee will be selected through the SMS voting. The users of Nepal Telecom and Spice Nepal mobiles can vote, according to NSJF. The nominee are Rakesh Shrestha and Bikash Malla of football, Binod Das of cricket, Karisma Karki of swimming, Manish Hamal of chess, Pramila Rijal of athletics and Manju Gurung of volleyball.

Top from left: Manish Hamal, Binod Das, Rakesh Shrestha, Bikash Malla
Bottom from left: Pramila Rijal, Manju Gurung and Karishma Karki.

The awardee will receive a cash prize of Rs 25,000, a Samsung camera, gift hamper from Surya Nepal and a carpet from Deepak Harsha Bajracharya.

The voting opened on Wednesday and will run until September 9.

“The nominees are already the winners as they are selected from among the players who performed well last year,” NSJF president Niranjan Rajbanshi said speaking on the occasion.

Last year, when NSJF introduced the award, ace football striker Jumanu Rai of Nepal Police bagged the award securing 68,682 out of 149,000 votes.

Five of the nominees attended the ceremony to announce the nominees.

Rakesh is the skipper of national football squad and Nepal Police Club. He is known as the reliable defender of the national squad and had played an important role in Nepal´s victory in the Prime Minister Cup Football Tournament this year.

Bikash is the national goalkeeper and skipper of Nepal Army Club. He was the key member of Manang Marsyangdi Club, the national league winner of 2062 before he joined the army.

Cricketer Binod is the national team captain as well as a cricket activist. He was the key player of the Nepali squad that gained third place in the ACC Trophy and ICC Cricket Division V.

Aqua queen Karishma is a rising star in the Nepali sports arena. She set a new record in the Fifth National Games winning 12 gold medals surpassing previous record of nine golds by Nayana Shakya in fourth National games. She won gold in all 12 events she participated in.

Manish is the first Nepali player to bag the FIDE Master title. He accumulated 6.5 points in the Olympiad of Chess held in Germany last year.

Athlete Pramila designated policewomen in the Armed Police Force team, won three gold medals in the Fifth National Games and set a national record in women´s 400 m race timing 59.60 seconds. She won gold in 100m, 200m and 400m race and in long jump, 4x100m relay and in 4x400m relay she satisfied with silver.

Manju Gurung from Pokhara is a national volleyball player. Besides this, she is also a good athlete and basketball player. She was the key player of the national volleyball squad which won bronze in the 10th South Asian Games held at Colombo, Sri Lanka in 2006.

(From Republica)

News on other publications
1. NSJF announces nominees for PoY Award (NepalNews)
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3. NSJF announces PoY nominees (The Himalayan Times)
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