The Ninth National Games scheduled to be held in Gandaki Province has been postponed for October 14 to 20.

The country's apex sports executive body, National Sports Council (NSC), had earlier announced to hold the National Games from June 5 to 11. But organising a press conference at the Ministry of Youth and Sports (MoYS) on Tuesday, Sports Minister Maheshwar Jung Gahatraj informed that the Games was postponed by four months.

It is the third time that the multi-sporting event has been postponed. The event was firstly set to take place in March 2021 but was cancelled due to the coronavirus pandemic. Although Nepal initiated the country’s mega sporting event in 1982 with plans to hold them every two years, the sporting authorities have been unable to stick to the schedule since the 1986 [third] edition.

According to Gahatraj, the Games was postponed by the meeting of the Council of Ministers as proposed by the NSC owing to insufficient preparations. "Though the players' selection process for the Games has already started, we did not have sufficient time to hold it in June because we need to go through a public procurement act to enforce the budget so the time is too short to host next month," said Gahatraj.

Gahatraj further added that hosts Gandaki complained of insufficient time for preparations as they were still undergoing the selection process. "Madhes Province also suggested that we postpone the Games because the provincial NSC is yet to be formed there. The Games was also affected by local level elections. The exams of grade 11 and 12 were also coupled with the Games," said Gahatraj.

"Moreover the 19th Asian Games (ASIAD) was also postponed for a year and the Games will serve as the final selection event for Asiad, so it was easy for us to postpone the Games," said Gahatraj.

Meanwhile, NSC has already decided to include 38 games including two exhibition events at the National Games. Shot put and canyoning have been included as exhibition games.

Apart from them, athletics, badminton, table tennis, cricket, football, tennis, hockey, boxing, volleyball, kabaddi, weightlifting, shooting, gymnastics, swimming, handball, judo, wrestling, soft tennis, squash, taekwondo, wushu, basketball, bodybuilding, chess, kho kho, karate, full contact karate, ITF taekwondo, sepak takraw, golf, archery, cycling, fencing, triathlon, paragliding and rugby have been included. All the events will have both men's and women's categories.