Eyes on the prize

Nepali shooter Kalpana Pariyar was busy perfecting her aim at the Satdobato Shooting Range in Lalitpur on Saturday ahead of the 2020 Olympics which begins later this month.

The Tribhuvan Army Club’s shooter Pariyar is the first Nepali athlete to get a wildcard for the Tokyo event. She edged past Nepal champion and national record holder Sushmita Nepal in a 10m Air Rifle event held by the Nepal Olympic Committee and Nepal Shooting Association to earn her berth.

Along with Pariyar, swimmers Gaurika Singh and Alex Shah have been confirmed under the universal quota to represent Nepal in this summer’s Olympics.

In judo, Soniya Bhatta has been selected as the wildcard for the 48kg event. Similarly, Saraswoti Chaudhary will be competing in women’s 100m under track and road races.

The Tokyo Olympics will be held from 23 July to 8 August but will have no spectators. All 339 events in 33 sports will take place under the state of emergency as Tokyo and cites with venues report an increasing number of coronavirus cases caused by SARS-CoV-2 variants.

Athletes are not required to vaccinate to travel to Tokyo and some big names such as the US swimmer Michael Andrew have publicly refused to inoculate fearing a last-minute reaction that would impact his game.

The International Olympic Committee on the other hand has assured that some 70- 80% of the participants including the media will have been vaccinated.