Army athletes triumph at Dhara Nepalgunj Marathon

Khadka clocked 2:20:28 to finish first in the AIMS-certified race which used electronic timing chips for the first time. He had finished fourth in the previous edition but claimed gold in his seventh appearance and earned prize money of NPR 150,000 (1060 EUR).

Santoshi Shrestha of Bagmati Province won the women’s half marathon gold medal. The 13th South Asian Games 10,000m gold medal winner, Shrestha finished the 21.1km race in 1:16:41. The nine times National Games double gold medallist, Shrestha had also claimed her seventh edition title in Nepalgunj.

Apart from marathon, athletes in half marathon, men’s 10km and women’s 5km events also used electronic timing chips. A total of 2461 athletes participated in different 13 categories of the Marathon. Actress Benisha Hamal, Miss Supranational 2022 Dr Keshu Khadka, Olympian Raghu Onta, South Asian Games gold medallists Deepak Shrestha, Manday kaji Shrestha and Swapnil Shrestha all participated in the celebrity run.

Nepalgunj Sub-metropolitan City Mayor Prashant Bist, and Kohalpur Municipality Mayor Purna Acharya inaugurated the eighth edition of the Dhara Nepalgunj Marathon. Nepalgunj Marathon Chairman TS Thakuri announced the ninth edition of the Marathon would be held on 18 November next year. The Nepalgunj Marathon began in 2015 to mark the signing of the comprehensive peace accord between the government of Nepal and Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) to end the decade-long conflict.