KATHMANDU, April 18: An official opening ceremony of bi-annual Eighth National Games is set to be held on Thursday at the renovated Nepalgunj Stadium, Banke. The matches were already started eight days ago with majority of the sports already played before the inauguration. 

President Bidhya Devi Bhandari will officially inaugurate the event.

An opening ceremony of around 2 hours and 32 minutes will feature acts from 1500 performers including Nepal Army’s Khukhuri drill, a combined dance performance from 500 students, among others.

The players who are participating in different events at Dang, Bhairahawa, Butwal, Kathmandu and Lalitpur like cricket, football, squash, gold, etc will not be able to feature in the ceremony. These categories were moved from Nepalgunj due to lack of infrastructure, delayed construction and renovation works of Nepalgunj stadium.  Similarly, Triathlon and Paragliding were also moved from Nepalgunj.

Likewise, 251 medals have already been distributed after the completion of majority of sports. Altogether 99 gold medals, 88 silver and 156 bronze medals winning players have already headed home before the official opening of the games. 

Member-secretary of National Sports Council (NSC) Keshav Bista said that they were short of Rs 110 million for the smooth organization of the event. 

“We are still looking for remaining budget which we expect to get soon in few days for smooth administration of the national games,” said Bista in a press conference held at Nepalgunj on Wednesday. NSC was allocated Rs 430 million from the ministry. However, the MoYS received Rs 320 million from the finance ministry.
 

 
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