When you talk about sports, Olympics, is one of the foremost sports competitions in the world. Over 200 countries take part in this sports competition. This sports event takes place once in every four years, alternating between summer and winter Olympics in every two years in four-year period. Nepal also take part in Olympics, even with it less number of players.

Summer Olympics 2020 has now started in Tokyo after the delay of about a year due to covid-19 pandemic situations. This event started on July 23, 2021 behind the closed doors with no spectators in the event. There are total of 339 events across 33 sports.

Nepal had few numbers of participants to the event, five to be particular. Gaurika Singh, Alexander Gadegaard Shah, Kalpana Pariyar, Soniya Bhatta and Saraswati Chaudhary are the names of the participants who had the opportunity to participate in the Tokyo summer Olympics 2020 through a wildcard entry. Gaurika and Alexander represented Nepal on 100m women’s and men’s swimming event respectively. Saraswati will represent on 100m women’s race and Kalpana Pariyar in 10m air rifle. Likewise, Soniya Bhatta will participate in women’s 48 kg weight in judo.

Among all these players, Saraswati is yet to compete in the event while others have already competed in the respective events. No players made it to the next round and with this little hopes only remain with Saraswati for medal in the event. However, seeing such a tough competition she is very unlikely to grab a medal for Nepal.

Despite the fact that no one is able to bag the medals, improvements were seen in the performance of the players. Swimmer Alexander Gadegaard Shah who represented in men’s 100m race broke his own national record of 55.38 seconds. He improved the timing from 55.38 seconds to 53.41 seconds. He gave an impressive performance by securing against first position among six players in heat 1.

Our star Gaurika also gave an impressive performance, she finished the 100m women’s swimming competition in 1.0011 minutes. She beat her own national record of 1.0062 minutes. Unfortunately, she failed to qualify for next round.

Judo player Soniya Bhatt competed against the Russian Dolgova Irina and lost to her. She lasted only one minutes and sixteen seconds against her. Dolgova Irina is ranked ninth in the world, while Bhatta is at 127^th position. If Irina makes it to the final, Bhatta will be able to compete again through rematch.

Shooter Kalpana Pariyar broke her own national record in shooting. In women’s 10m air rifle event she set new record scoring 616.8 points. She collected 102.2, 105.4, 101.0, 104.1, 103.4 and 100.7 points respectively in first to six series of the event. Her earlier record was 614.5 points which she set in the 13^th south Asian games held in Nepal.

Saraswati Chaudhary will compete in women’s 100m race. Its yet to see how she performs, whether she will be able to grab a medal or at least breaks her own records.

It seems that no medals are coming home this Olympics as predicted. However, players have given impressive performances throughout the event. Hope that Nepal will bag medals in other Olympics to come.