Medal fiasco, again

NEPALGUNJ: The organisers made the greatest of the mistakes when they awarded the overall runners-up trophy to Nepal APF Club instead of Nepal Police Club. The NPC had finished second with 62 gold medals, while APF were third with 54. TAC defended the title with 140 gold medals.

Technical Committee chief Ganga Bahadur Thapa Magar accepted the mistake and said the trophies were replaced later.

Vice-president Nanda Bahadur Pun handed over the trophies to the top three teams at the Nepalgunj Stadium.

“It’s our mistake and that happened while typing the details,” said Thapa. He also said that the details provided by the Press and Publicity Sub-committee were right but the errors occurred due to the negligence of the Technical Committee.

This is not the only case related to medals in the eighth National Games. National Sports Council had announced 372 each gold and silver medals along with 536 bronze for the eight National Games but the number reduced drastically due to the negligence of the organisers. The organisers distributed 335 gold, 334 silver and 480 bronze medals.

According to the NSC source, the medal count itself was a mistake as the technical committee received wrong information from the national associations.

“They did a mistake in medal count and we came to know about of the number of events only after the Games got underway,” said the source, adding that the numbers varied in shooting, sepak takraw and gymnastics. “ThThe organisers made the greatest of the mistakes when they awarded the overall runners-up trophy to Nepal APF Club instead of Nepal Police Club. The NPC had finished second with 62 gold medals, while APF were third with 54. TAC defended the title with 140 gold medals.e organisers also did not count the medals of archery, body building and triathlon as the three sports disciplines as they did not meet the minimum criteria of four teams,” he added.

This is not the first time, the organisers did mistake in medal count. The NSC had failed to add the medals of swimming and marathon in the seventh edition of the Games held in Eastern Region.

Unlike previous editions, the eighth National Games did not have the same number of gold and silver medals after the organisers did not award the runner-up medal to Tribhuvan Army Club men’s epee team for misbehaving with the officials. “It was not the players who misbehaved with the officials. The game was going smoothly and the TAC supporters reached the arena protesting the referee’s decision,” said Nepal Fencing Association General Secretary Sujan Lal Shrestha. “As the TAC players refused to resume the match following the protest, the referee first showed them the yellow card and dismissed the team with black card after they did not return to the arena. The black card means disqualification of the team with a suspension of two months,” he added.