Nepal Sports Journalists Forum

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.

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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.

Nepal Sports Journalists Forum (NSJF) and Chaudhary Group’s LG today renewed the sponsorship deal for the NSJF-LG Player of the Year (PoY) Awards 2006-07 slated for September 10.

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NSJF President Niranjan Rajbanshi and Sales and Marketing Deputy General Manager of LG Ramesh Shrestha signed the Memorandum of Understanding. As per the MoU, LG will be the main sponsor of the award function and will provide NSJF Rs 350,000 in cash and kind.

Shrestha said he was happy to be associated with the prestigious award. “LG has been sponsoring the event for the last two years, and I feel that the function has gained its height among the sports fraternity,” said Shrestha.

Apart from the six categories — Male, Female, Youth, Coach, Lifetime Achievement and Special awards — presented last year, the NSJF has added Popular Player of the Year category this time around. The winner of the Popular player will be decided through the SMS voting.

According to the NSJF, LG would also provide a mobile set each to all the seven winners and an LG wrist watch each to the nominees. The winners will also receive a mountain flight ticket each from Buddha Air and gift hampers from Rio. The male and female winners will receive Rs 25,000 each, while the winners in the Youth, Coach and Popular sections will get Rs 15,000 apiece, informed NSJF General Secretary Hemanta Kafle. Kafle said Chaudhary Group’s Oranjeboom and Rio have also agreed to support the award.

Thanking the sponsors for their support, the NSJF president Rajbanshi said it was a matter of pride to be associated with a renowned brand like LG. “Our association with the LG has given more weight to the function,” said Rajbanshi.