Athletes Gopi Chandra Parki and Rajpura Pachhai won the men’s and women’s Kantipur Half Marathon titles in Kathmandu on Saturday.

APF Club’s Parki completed the 21.1 km race in 1 hour 7 minutes and 41 seconds to clinch his second Kantipur Half Marathon trophy. Parki, also a gold medallist in the 5,000m race at the 13th South Asian Games, had won the half marathon in 2016.

“I ran to win the race, and I won. I feel great,” said 32-year-old Parki, who was also a runner up in the 2015 edition of the half marathon. “I wanted to break the previous record. But it took me about one or one-and-a-half minutes more because the route was different this time.”

Hari Kumar Rimal holds the record of 1 hour 6 minutes and 41 seconds, which he set in the 2017 edition of the half marathon.

Nepal Police Club’s Pachhai clocked 1 hour 19 minutes and 10 seconds to clinch her first Kantipur Half Marathon title.

“I am happy to win,” said Pachhai, adding that she could not meet her expectations. “I wanted to complete the race in 1:15:16 but I could not because I only had a one-week preparation due to the local elections.”

This was Pachhai’s third appearance in the Kantipur Half Marathon.

Winners Parki and Pachhai took home a purse of Rs100,000 each.

The 10th edition of the half marathon, themed ‘Run for Green Nepal’ in view of the impacts of climate change the country is facing, was inaugurated by Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba. The annual event took place after a two-year hiatus due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Nearly 1,500 runners participated in the event.

Tribhuvan Army Club’s Deepak Adhikari and Mukesh Pal finished second and third, respectively, in the men’s category. Adhikari completed the distance in 1 hour 7 minutes and 50 seconds while Pal clocked in at 1 hour 8 minutes and 47 seconds.

Army’s Gajendra Rai finished fourth, followed by Narendra Singh Rawal in the fifth position and Khagendra Bhat, also from the Army, in the sixth position.

In the women’s 21.1km category, APF’s Pushpa Bhandari finished in 1 hour 22 minutes and 5 seconds to finish second while Nepal Police’s Rekha Bista recorded a time of 1 hour 30 minutes and 42 seconds to come third.

Army’s Nirmala KC secured the fourth position, APF’s Bindra Ghale Shrestha fifth and Gita BK, also from the Army, finished sixth.

The runners-up of both men’s and women’s categories received Rs50,000 each. The third, fourth, fifth and sixth placed runners of both categories won Rs30,000, Rs20,000, Rs10,000 and Rs5,000 each respectively.

The 21.1 km race had started from Central Business Park in Thapathali, the central office of Kantipur Publications Limited, and traversed through Maitighar Mandala, New Baneshwar, Tinkune, Koteshwar, Lokanthali, Thimi, Sallaghari and Katunje and returned via the same route to the starting point.

In the corporate run segment, Bikash Pokharel won the men’s category with a recorded time of 17 minutes and 48.27 seconds to complete the 5km distance. Sher Bahadur Tharu and Ritesh Oli finished second and third, respectively.

Sunny Tamang completed the race in 26 minutes and 34.24 seconds to win the corporate run under the women’s category. Sunita Maharjan and Laeden Pradhan finished second and third, respectively.

The winners of both men’s and women’s corporate run won Pokhara tour packages; the runners-up Nagarkot packages and the third-placed finishers won a mountain flight ticket each.

Ramesh Khatri won the men’s 3km wheelchair race timing 12 minutes and 32.03 seconds followed by Prem Bahadur BK and Dan Bahadur Thing in the second and third positions.

Yami Jhakri won the 3km wheelchair race under the women’s category finishing at 17 minutes and 51.1 seconds. Rajani Rai finished second.

The top three winners in the wheelchair events were rewarded Rs30,000, Rs20,000 and Rs10,000, respectively.

All the runners were given a plant each at the end of the race to convey the message of green city and green country.