The APF athletes won 19 out of the 35 gold medals that were up for grabs. And they did this despite lacking in numbers. “Our goal was to win 25 golds; but we did not have enough athletes, and so some of our athletes had to participate in multiple events,” said APF athletics coach Sushil Narsingh Rana.
Not only did the APF athletes win 19 golds, some of them also ratcheted up the bar a notch or two, breaking three records. The APF athletes shattered the existing national records in the women’s 400-meter sprint, the men’s 110-meter hurdles (men) and in the men’s high jump.
APF contingent member Bal Krishna Chaudhary, who broke the national record in the high jump, said that his team’s success was made possible by the training that the APF’s coaching staff had provided. Sushil Narsingh Rana spread the praise all around, by commending all his other fellow-APF coaches “The discipline that the team was forced to adhere to, the training environment we were immersed in and the long-term plans that our coaches had gave us the edge,” said Rana.
The APF victories might have been all the sweeter had the army not withdrawn from the games, and Chaudhary acknowledged that fact as well. “The army’s absence has lowered the level of competition,” Chaudhary said. But he wasn’t ruing the army’s absence merely to ham it up for the media; he was speaking as a true competitor. “If I had more adept competitors, I could have perhaps performed better,” Chaudhary said.
The Nepal Army boycotted the athletics events to protest the PLA’s being allowed to compete in the events.
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