The Nepal Olympic Committee (NOC) has introduced a program that will further help Nepali athletes fulfill their dream of participating in the Olympics. Why should anyone in Nepal try to make sports their future? The answer to this is the program itself, and for this, athletes will have to prove their excellence in their sport. The NOC signed 8 athletes under the Olympic Athlete Scholarship on Friday.

This will help pave the way for these players to participate in the upcoming 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles, USA. These eight lucky players are Judo's Manita Shrestha Pradhan, Tennis's Shivali Gurung, Cycling's Usha Khanal, Table Tennis's Ivana Thapa, Badminton's Prince Dahal, Sport Climbing's Tenzing Bertin Rai, Swimming's Irvin Shrestha, and Golf's Sadbhav Acharya.

The process of providing such scholarships has started since the 2004 Olympics. Earlier, Judo's Manita Shrestha had also played in the Paris Olympics while on an Olympic scholarship.

This process of scholarships has taken a comprehensive form with the arrival of the seventh edition of the Olympics. Under the Olympic Solidarity scholarship, players will now receive an amount equivalent to $1,125 every month. This scholarship will last for 24 months. In this way, each player will receive millions of rupees directly into their account during this period. Such a scholarship is the largest and most financially significant in the history of Nepali sports.

The selection of the eight players was made by a committee comprising Rajiv Shrestha, Tasi Ghale and Sujan Lal Shrestha of the NOC. Shrestha, who is also the general secretary of the committee, claimed that this program will bring a wave to Nepali sports and said, ‘The Nepal Olympic Committee has always been aware of the future of the players.’ Vice-chairman of the committee Chaturananda Rajvadhya said that the scholarship program will inspire any player to perform better. 

Vaidhya, who is also the leader of the All Nepal Table Tennis Association, said, ‘In the last Olympics, table tennis players have reached the Olympics from selection. Now our aim will remain the same. This program has made Nepali table tennis more enthusiastic.’ 

According to Shrestha, who is the office secretary of the committee, this amount received by the players will be used for systematic training. According to him, the players will be encouraged to take training abroad and participate in competitions to earn the necessary points for Olympic selection. 

In the program, the committee has also provided scholarships to 5 players for the upcoming Asian Games from its own resources. The next Asian Games will be held in Aichi/Nagoya, Japan in 2026. Under this scholarship, the players will receive 50,000 rupees every month and it will last for 9 months. The recipients of this scholarship are karate's Erika Gurung and Sanumaya Thing, boxing's Chandra Bahadur Thapa, archery's Tilak Punmagar and usuiki's Sushmita Tamang.