Tokyo Olympics
Nepali athletes were just gearing up for the Tokyo 2020 Summer Olympics when it was rescheduled for 23 July-8 August 2021. Fifteen Nepali athletes are training for archery, judo, tae kwon do, karate, shooting, weightlifting, swimming, and athletics. Of them, ten are in Kathmandu and three are in Pokhara, while two swimmers have been training in London.
Chaturananda Raj Vaidhya of the Nepal Olympics Committee (NOC) told Nepali Times the committee has constantly been in touch with the athletes virtually to ensure that their training and nutrition needs were being met. Although training was scaled-back during the lockdown, athletes are now back to full-fledged schedules.
2020 saw many sports institutions and teams across the world adopt bio-bubbles to restrict players’ exposure to the coronavirus. Nepali athletes are also in closed training camps. “The International Olympics Committee has informed us that all participating Olympians will be vaccinated for free in the event that any coronavirus vaccine is approved,” Vaidhya explains. “In the meantime, we are following all safety protocols.”