After a series of lobbying by Nepal Police and pressure from Nepal National and International Players Association (NNIPA) National Sports Council (NSC) on Tuesday allowed two athletes namely Tilak Ram Tharu and Chandra Kala Thapa to participate in the championship.[break]
“As Nepal Police came forward to take the responsibilities of the players during the championship, we approved a proposal from Nepal Police to send the players,” said NSC Member Secretary Yuvaraj Lama.
Nepal Police SSP Sudip Acharya will lead the Nepali team. Both the athletes belong to Nepal Police Club.
Nepal´s participation has almost come to an end after NSC and two Nepal Amateur Athletics Associations, one recognized by IAAF and other by NSC, could not reach an agreement last week.
Earlier, NSC had 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, had formed a new NAAA body under the presidency of Nilendra Shrestha.
The newly formed NAAA body had corresponded with International Association of Athletics Federation (IAAF) to confirm registration of Nepali players and official on August 15, but the IAAF rejected their correspondence refusing to recognize the newly formed ad-hoc NAAA body.
After the series of incident NSC Member Secretary Lama had said that state authority could not compromise with anyone and send players from back door and barred players from participating.
"Nepal Police and players took the initiation and finally NSC agreed to send players under the responsibility of the Nepal Police,” said Rabi Rajkarnikar. “Our NAAA has already started visa process for players and we facilitated SSP Acharya in the visa process,” he added.
Nepal Police Club athletics coach Leela Shrestha expressed his delight that the athletes finally got a chance to experience World Championship. According to Shrestha, Nepali team will left Kathmandu on Thursday afternoon.
Thapa and Tharu will participate in 100m and 200m sprints in women and men´s categories respectively.
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