Finally, the long wait is over. Team Nepal on August 29 secured silver medal in men’s paragliding team event at the 18th Asian Games being held in Indonesia, breaking a 20-year silver drought at Asia’s premier sporting event.

 

The last time Nepal had won a silver, its only silver in the Asian Games, was in Bangkok 1998, when Sabita Rajbhandari came second in taekwondo. Unfortunately, after the paragliding glory, Nepal may have to wait for a while to earn another Asian-level medal as worthy. 

 

Even in the case of the 2018 Asiad, Nepal failed to qualify for the event in over a dozen sports. This isn’t surprising. Besides the wildly popular football and cricket, the country has always had great promise, in martial arts for instance.

 

Yet Nepal has been unable to realize its potential due to pathetic state of sporting infrastructure and pervasive corruption in sports bodies. They say numbers don’t lie.

 

There are currently 207 sports associations registered with the National Sports Council, Nepal’s sports governing body.

 

The sport of karate alone has 45 associations. There are associations for curling and Iranian wresting, even though there are no players for these sports. Each of these associations has the backing of this or that political party. 

 

Whenever Nepal is invited to take part in a sporting event abroad, the prime concern is not to prepare the athletes but how to use the opportunity to arrange for all-expenses-paid foreign trips for association officials and their families. With such perverted incentives at work no wonder Nepal has punched far below its weight at international sporting meets.

 

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