Nepal, prime minister Prachanda takes Olympic gold
Kathmandu (AsiaNews) - Disappointment over athletic achievements, but new hope on the political level: these are the contrasting sentiments in Nepal over the Beijing Olympics, which ended yesterday with the closing ceremony at which the new prime minister, Prachanda, also participated.
On Saturday, August 23, the prime minister flew to the Chinese capital at the invitation of the Beijing government; yesterday, Prachanda met with president Hu Jintao, prime minister Wen Jiabao, and other leading figures of the central government. Before leaving for China, Prachanda held a press conference at the airport during which he emphasized that "the main objective of my visit is to attend the closing ceremony of Beijing Olympics on behalf of Nepal". But analysts are not overlooking the political nature of the invitation from the Chinese authorities, and of the talks with the local leadership. "This visit is something more than mere attendance at the closing ceremony of Olympics", says professor and political analyst Lokraj Baral. He adds that “although Nepalese competitors obtained poor results at the Olympics, the government really intended to gain something in the political arena”.
It has not gone unobserved in Nepal that there was no Indian delegation at the airport for the Nepalese prime minister's departure for China; there were government officials, political leaders from various parties, and some foreign guests, but no representative from India. The "chill" in relations between India and Nepal thus seems to continue, following years of close economic and diplomatic relations. The tradition is for the Nepalese prime minister to go to India on his first official trip, but this time - because of the Olympics, according to one interpretation - China was the first destination. Returning to China-Nepal talks, Prachanda assured his Chinese counterparts that there will be no "movements or demonstrations against China", announcing at the same time a security crackdown "to prevent any difficulty with Beijing". The main target of the provisions are the Tibetans living in Nepal, whose freedom of action to organize protests and demonstrations for a "Free Tibet" seems to have been eliminated.
On the level of sports, hopes for the eight Nepalese athletes who participated in the Olympics were dashed. The greatest disappointment comes over Deepak Bista, the national Taekwondo champion thought to have had the only real chance of winning a medal. But he was beaten 7-0 by Hadi Saei from Iran, who won gold by beating Italy's Mauro Sarmento in the final. Deepak was affected by knee problems: "“Both my luck and knee didn’t favor me on Friday”,the Nepalese fighter writes to AsiaNews, adding, “I am extremely sorry as I could not pay my supporters back with the medal, and now I want to close this chapter on a high with a gold in the next South Asia Games".
There was no medal for the swimmer Karishma Karki, either, who failed even to beat the national record in the 50 meter freestyle, her specialty: "It seems ridiculous", she said after returning home, "but I did better in practice. At the competition, it was a crushing disappointment". Karishma Karki lays part of the blame for the poor results on the lack of "sports facilities" in Nepal, especially for swimming. "We don’t get to train during the winter, due to lack of an indoor swimming pool. That leaves the swimmer with just six months for training".
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