By Sachit Subba • Other Sports • Sep 27, 2026 12:40 PM • 405 views
Arika Gurung and Rakesh Manandhar bounced back from their earlier exit at the 20th Asian Games by winning gold medals at the 11th World Shitoryu Karate Championships in Yokohama. Their wins made for a successful weekend for the Nepali martial arts team, which won six medals in total at the international event. Gurung won the women's over 68 kg event, whereas Manandhar took the top position in the men's under 60 kg division.
The success at the World Championships was a great relief for a Nepali sports team that had struggled during its participation in the Asian Games in Nagoya. Five Nepali karate practitioners reached the bronze medal rounds at the Asiad in Toyohashi before the World Championships, but only Tenzing Sherpa finished on the podium. Nirupa Dong Tamang won a silver medal in the under-68 kg category in Yokohama, and Min Bahadur Tamang secured bronze in the under-67 kg event. The women's kata team, consisting of Megha Limbu, Sanumaya Thing and Alisha Raskoti, also won bronze, just as the kumite team had.
In Nagoya, Nepal achieved a long-awaited breakthrough at the Asian Games by winning through to the men's doubles round of 16. Pradeep Khadka and Abhishek Bastola defeated Mongolia's Munkhbaatar Badrakh and Urnukh Zolbadrakh. The experienced pair won the first set 6–2 but lost the second 4–6. They secured victory in the deciding super tiebreak, 14 to 12, by relying on Bastola's four previous appearances at the tournament and on Khadka's baseline pressure. Head coach Renu Devi Konda commended their resilience in high-pressure situations. The win means that Nepal will now have to face the top-seeded Indian pair, Anirudh Chandrasekar and N. Sriram Balaji, in the second round.
Other Nepali tennis players had difficulty when playing against stronger opponents. Shivali Gurung was beaten 6-1, 6-0 by Park Da-yeon from South Korea, and Swastika Bista lost 6-1, 6-1 to Moyuka Uchijima, the favourite from the host nation. The archery team also encountered similar problems at the Okazaki Chuo Sogo Park. The mixed recurve pair consisting of Gyanu Awale and Tilak Pun Magar lost 6-2 in their elimination round to the United Arab Emirates. Although they had won the first set 39-34, the Nepali archers then lost three sets in a row to Aisha Al-Ali and Khalifa Al-Kaabi. Gyanu Awale and Tilak Pun Magar will be taking part in the individual recurve knockout rounds later this week.
Although athletes who have taken part in boxing, badminton, and cricket have managed to clear their first obstacles, Nepal's chances of winning medals are still mainly dependent on its martial artists and its rising tennis doubles team.
