NSC honours Beach Games gold medallist Dhruba

HIMALAYAN NEWS SERVICE

KATHMANDU: The National Sports Council (NSC) today honoured equestrian Dhruba Prasad Aryal for winning Nepal’s only gold medal in the first South Asian Beach Games with cash rewards.

The Tribhuvan Army Club rider was feted with Rs 50,000 by the sports governing body for his gold in the Individual Ring and Peg event of the Games that was held in Sri Lankan city of Hambantota from October 8-14. The NSC honour came five months after it had declared to felicitate him with cash rewards.

“Nepali sports had a busy schedule after we declared to fete him. Now, since schedules are a bit sparse now, we finally managed to honour him today,” said Lama, who was recently elected as the president of the Nepal Equestrian Association.

Apart from the individual event gold, Dhruba had also won two silver medals in Lance and

Peg along with Sword and Peg team events. The horse rider also took an individual event bronze in Lance and Peg.

Lama said his newly-formed committee is looking forward to organise more events. “We have

set certain framework and will go accordingly. First, we will make it more organised in the districts where horse riding activities are frequently

held and work further,” said the member secretary appreciating Dhruba’s achievements.

“Druba’s gold has come out of the blue, especially at a time when we were ill-prepared. Since, the

gold also came from Nepal’s maiden international participation in equestrian, it shows the possibilities in the discipline. We have to change those possibilities into opportunities,” said Lama.

Dhruba said he was happy to be honoured. Dhruba also said the sport needed to be organised. “We managed to win five medals in our participation and that shows that equestrian had a possibility to be established as a recognised sport,” said Dhruba, a 36-year old second class officer in the Nepal Army from Syangja.

Nepal had won a total

of eight gold medals during the Beach Games

in Hambantota that saw the team finish fourth among the participating eight countries.