Nepal Police Club athletes Chandra Kala Thapa and Tilak Ram Tharu were selected to participate in the 100m and 200m sprints during the World Championship to be held in Daegu, South Korea, but the power battle within the three bodies barred their participation.[break]
NSC dissolved the Nepal Amateur Athletics Association (NAAA), which was led by its General Secretary Rabi Rajkarnikar, on July 29 alleging of not holding general assembly for years, lacking transparency and Rajkarnikar´s involvement in human trafficking. NSC, later, formed new NAAA body under the presidency of Nilendra Shrestha.
The newly formed NAAA body corresponded with International Association of Athletics Federation (IAAF) to confirm registration of Nepali players on August 15, but the IAAF rejected their correspondence refusing to recognize the newly formed ad-hoc NAAA body.
Meanwhile, a meeting between the officials of three bodies failed to reach an agreement on Thursday in their attempt to solve the matter and send players to Korea.
“You will not go to Korea in such situation. But you keep up your training. Participating in a tournament is not a big deal. It´s just that the state could not compromise with anyone and send players from backdoor,” an official present at the meeting quoted NSC Member Secretary Yuvaraj Lama.
Member Secretary Lama told Republica that he made the difficult decision as he saw a possibility of embarrassment. “How can I send players in such condition? Who will be responsible if players do not return from there?” asked Lama.
“They came too late at NSC, therefore, we could not do anything on the matter,” he added.
NSC appointed NAAA President Nilendra Shrestha alleged Rajkarnikar of acting irresponsibly despite gentlemen´s agreement between them. “IAAF has rejected our attempt to register players,” said Shrestha. “We got the documents of previous procedure very late and we could not register players and officials.”
On the other hand, Rajkarnikar blamed the newly formed committee. “I´ve told them not to correspond with IAAF and not to take internal debate to international bodies but they corresponded twice, both of which failed,” said Rajkarnikar. “Initially they agreed to send players through the dissolved association, but later they showed double standard,” he added.
Rajkarnikar alleged that NSC and the new committee members are more concerned about compelling him to resign and taking control of the association rather than sending players. “On the one hand, they say that our committee is illegal as NSC had dissolved it, and, on the other hand, call me at NSC to talk about sending players,” said Rajkarnikar.
According to Rajkarnikar, he had proposed to send athletes with a Nepal Police official as they both belong to Nepal Police Club but NSC and Shrestha´s committee rejected the proposal.
However, Member Secretary Lama commented that Rajkarnikar has no authority to decide who will lead the Nepali delegate. “As we have dissolved his committee, he has no authority to propose such things,” said Lama.
According to an official present in the meeting, the two athletes, Thapa and Tharu, could not hold tears after hearing officials´ discussion during the meeting and pleaded to send them to Korea without any official. However, nobody listened to them.
“The member secretary said that state could not compromise for just two players. I don´t know what that means. I only know that our years-long effort went in vain,” said Chandra Kala Thapa. “We train hard and put our youthful days for participating in few such international tournaments, but I don´t know why they are reluctant to send us,” she added.
The World Championship is scheduled to be held in Korea from August 27 to September 3.
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