Like the men, the women's category has also been awarded in every edition, with one exception in 2078.
What you should know
Compared to the men, the NSJF Pulsar Sports Awards for the best female athlete category is more open to competition. There is also considerable diversity among its winners, both in terms of the sport and the athlete.
Like men, this category of women has also been awarded in every edition, with the exception of the year 2078. Everyone knows that the award was given to the best of the decade that year. And, the winner at that time was Savitra Bhandari.
This same Savitra won this award in the year 2075. The series of awards for the best female player begins with Sangina Vaidya. She won the first award in 2053. Sangina won this award again in 2060 when she woke up.
After Sangina and Savitra, there is only one player in this category who has won this award twice. She is Ganga Adhikari of karate. She won it for the first time in the year 2066. Then she repeated the same success in 2069.
This unparalleled fact has become associated with the name of Ganga. Along with Sangina, Savitra and Ganga, 20 players have won this award so far. In the year 2061, two people received this award together. This is the first and only example of a pair of players receiving the award in the men's and women's individual categories. And, they are, badminton's Pooja Shrestha and Sumina Shrestha.
Players from 10 sports have won this award on the basis of sports. Taekwondo and badminton are the most of them. This is a fact that will remain inspiring for badminton. Another player who won this award from taekwondo is Manita Shahi. And from badminton, Nangsaldevi Tamang and Shobha Gauchan won this award. In this way, although badminton has won the award on three occasions, there are four players who have achieved this success individually.
Karate has won this award on three occasions. Ganga won on two of them. The last time a similar achievement was achieved in the year 2080 by Erica Gurung. After that, athletics, swimming, football and judo have won this award on two occasions each. Nirmala Bharti and Rajpura Prasai from athletics and Karishma Karki and Gaurika Singh from swimming won this award. Gaurika is the player who has won the most gold medals for Nepal in international sports.
The first player to win this award from football is Jamuna Gurung. Like Savitra, Jamuna is also the best player Nepali women's football has ever had. Then Savitra became the next. The list of players who won the award from judo includes Sunita Bohara and Phupulhamu Khatri. Coincidentally, they were declared winners for consecutive years.
The sports and players who won this award on 1-1 occasions include cricket's Neri Thapa, weightlifting's Tara Pun and volleyball's Aruna Shahi. Based on this list, another fact is also established and that is, there will be no history of a single player dominating Nepali women's sports for a long time. Sangeeta is the only player who played well at the highest level for a long time.
Who will be the winner of the women's category in the 22nd edition of the award to be held in Pokhara this time? This time, the nominees include karate's Erika and Alisa Magar, kho-kho player Manmati Dhami, football's Rekha Poudel, and volleyball's Salina Shrestha. Among these names, Erika is also the winner of the last edition. In this case, she will have the opportunity to create new history. Kho-kho is nominated for the first time in the history of the award.
