Saintu and Prince will play the day after the opening of the Paris Olympics

Nepali table tennis is going to play Olympics for the first time. Santu reached the Olympics by winning the South Asian Qualifying Tournament. Judo's Manita has made it to the Olympics from the continental quota.

Both are national champions in their respective sports. Both won medals in the 13th South Asian Games. It is the Olympics that will be held after 100 years in the city of Paris . Earlier, the eighth edition was held in 1924. France is hosting the Olympics for the third time. In 1900, the second edition was also made in France.

Around 11,000 players are competing in this Olympics. These players from 206 nations are competing in 329 events of 32 games. The break dancing game is making its debut through this Olympics.

Due to the Covid-19 epidemic, the 2020 Olympics were held a year later in 2021 in Tokyo, Japan, so this is going to be held in a gap of three years.

The opening of the Olympics, which is going to be the slogan 'Games Wide Open', is being held outside the stadium for the first time in history. There is a program to open the Olympics with the famous "Seine River" in France as the focal point. The players will do the marchpass by taking a boat on the river Seine .

7 players have participated in 6 games from Nepal. Apart from Santu and Manita, there are Santoshi Shrestha of Athletics, Prince Dahal of Badminton, Alexander Shah and Duwana Lama of Swimming and Sushmita Nepal of Shooting. Along with table tennis, badminton is the first Olympic participation.

Coaches are Kantikumari Mahato Mahato of athletics, Rajendra Kapali of table tennis, Devu Thapa of judo, Nayana Shakya of swimming and Pradeep Khati of shooting . From badminton, the coach is not participating . According to the Nepal Olympic Committee, the Nepali Paris Olympic team consists of 27 members and the member secretary of the National Sports Council, Tanklal Ghising, is safe in the mission.

All the players except Santoshi will participate in the opening ceremony . Marathon runner Santoshi will go to Paris only on July 30 as the Games are the last day of the Olympics.

The participation of athletes from countries other than India in the South Asian countries in the Paris Olympics is minimal . In which Nepal 7, Pakistan 7, Sri Lanka 6, Bangladesh 5, Maldives 5, Afghanistan 4 and Bhutan 3 players are participating.

In terms of player participation, the top three countries are sending 592 players from America, 573 from host France and 460 players from Australia. Nepal's two neighbors China and India will send 388 and 113 athletes to the Paris Olympics.

As the table tennis and badminton matches will start the day after the opening, there is a competition for Nepalese players. The football match has already started on Wednesday.

According to the initial 'draw' of table tennis, Santu has got Senegal's Ibrahima Diaw as his first opponent in the men's singles . Diaw, who was born in France, played from France at the junior level. He is the son of a Senegalese father and a Malian mother. At the age of 31, he won a bronze medal at the 13th African Games in 2023.

The player who wins that match will enter the round of 64 stage . If he wins there, Santu will meet with 32-year-old Wang Chun Ting from Hong Kong . The veteran Ting, who won a bronze medal at the 2017 Men's World Cup Table Tennis, is a doubles title winner at the World Championship and the ITTF World Tour. Currently ranked 38th, he reached sixth world ranking in 2017.

There are 41 competitors from 36 countries in Badminton Men's Singles . Prince is in the group 'P'. On Saturday, the day after the opening, Prince will play his first match against world number two and two-time world champion Viktor Axelsen of Denmark at the Porte de la Chapelle Arena in Paris.

After that, Prince, who has become the world number one for juniors, will meet Misa Zilberman from Israel and Nahat Nguyen from Ireland who have played three times in the Olympics. Missa, who played in the 2012, 2016 and 2020 Olympics, is a medalist at the European Championships. Iris Nguyen is also a European U-17 Championship gold winner. After competing in the round robin, the top player in this group will directly advance to the quarter-finals . Sushmita's game of

shooting is on July 28. She will compete in the women's 10m air rifle .

Judoki Manita will play on July 29 . The initial "draw" of his game has not come. Manita will compete in women's under 57 kg weight group.

Swimming Duwana's women will compete in the 200m freestyle . His match is on July 28 . There are 31 competitors from 27 countries in this event . Duwana, who is studying and training in Hong Kong, went to Paris from there.

Another swimmer Alexander will participate in the men's 100m freestyle . Her competition is July 30 . 79 swimmers from 65 countries will compete in this event. Alexander, who is in America, reached the Paris Olympics after preparing there.

runner Santoshi will participate in the women's marathon. The closing day of the Olympics will be on August 11. 95 female runners of the world will participate. Nepal is going to participate in the women's marathon of the Olympics for the third time. Previously participated in the 1996 Atlanta and 1988 Seoul Olympics.

For the first time in Olympic history, the women's marathon has been held on the last day. Previously, only the men's marathon was held on the closing day of the Olympics. Organizer France claims that women's marathon is the main attraction to show high respect for gender equality.

Nepal in history

Nepal has started participating in the Olympic Games since Tokyo in 1964. Nepal did not participate in the 1968 Mexico City Olympics. Until the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, Nepal has made 86 athletes participate in the Olympics in athletics, swimming, boxing, shooting, judo, weightlifting, archery and taekwondo. In athletics, players have participated from the beginning.

Individual athletics runner Vaikunth Manandhar has four consecutive Olympics, athletics Hari Bahadur Rokay and Tika Bogti, swimming Gaurika Singh and famous Jang Shah and boxing Dal Bahadur Ranamar and Umesh Maske have two Olympics.

Taekwondo's Sangina Vaidya (Greece 2004) and Deepak Bishta (Beijing 2008) played in the Olympics after passing the qualifying stage. This year, Saints of Table Tennis were added to it. As a

medal at the 1988 Seoul Olympics, Vidhan Lama won bronze in the Taekwondo exhibition match. Nepal had the highest number of 18 athletes participating in the Seoul Olympics. Before that, Nepal participated in 12 athletes in Moscow in 1980 and 11 athletes in Los Angeles Olympics in 1984.

Athletes playing in Paris

Athletics : Santoshi Shrestha

Swimming : Alexander Shah and Duwana Lama

Badminton : Prince Dahal

Table Tennis : Santu Shrestha

Shooting : Sushmita Nepal

Judo : Manita Shrestha Pradhan

Photo Courtesy: Lokendra Basnet/Rakhep