Tribhuvan Army Club won 18 gold, 12 silver and five bronze medals to be declared team champions at the 44th National Athletics Championships on Sunday.

Army secured golds in men’s and women’s discus throw and men’s 4×400m relay on the final day to top the medal tally as the championships wrapped up at the Dasharath Stadium in Tripureshwar.

Sita Shahi threw 33.53 metres to claim women’s discus gold while Chitra Bahadur Bali recorded 36.89 metres to win men’s gold. Sangita Adhikari of Lumbini Province and Milan Budha Magar of Army won silver and bronze in the women’s event. Nepal Police Club’s Puskal Khadka and APF Club’s Milan Chaudhary were second and third, respectively.

In the 4×400m relay, Army’s Som Bahadur Kumal, Jeevan Tharu, Prakash Danuwar and Ram Prasad Tharu recorded 3:20.4 to claim gold. APF’s Shivaraj Parki, Ashish Chaudhary, Nir Pratap Mahato and Sanjeev Nepali were second while Police’s Sahan Chand Shah, Amrit Bote, Om Prakash Shah and Tej Bahadur Karki finished third.

AFP won the women’s 4×400m relay. Ramita Tharu, Bhagarathi Tharu, Kalpana Shrestha and Phoolmati Rana completed the race in 4 minutes 3.1 seconds—6.2 second ahead of Army’s team of Nirmala Thapa, Jayarani Tharu, Saraswati Bhattarai and Radhika Shrestha. Bagmati’s Rajita Dulal, Anju Khadka, Anita Mijar and Prakrati Suwal were third.

Santoshi Shrestha of Bagmati secured her second gold medal after she won the women’s 3000m race clocking 10 minutes 06.6 seconds. The 13th South Asian Games gold medallist and the half-marathon national record holder had won a gold medal in the 1500m race on Friday.

Rajpura Pachhai of Police, who won the women’s 21.1 km Kantipur Half-Marathon title earlier this month, finished second taking 10:08.4. Rammaya Budha of Karnali claimed bronze timing 10:41.9.

Gopi Chandra Parki of APF, the winner of men’s Kantipur Half-Marathon, took 8:29.5 to claim men’s 3000m gold. Mukesh Pal of Army completed the distance in 8:30.0 to finish second. Dipak Adhikari, also from the Army, timed 8:38.0 to get bronze.

APF’s Sila Chaudhary claimed the gold medal in women’s triple jump with a leap of 11.04 metres. Sima Chaudhary and Police and Salim Devan jumped 13.53 metres and 13.44 metres to win silver and bronze medals, respectively.

In men’s triple jump, Bagmati’s Bhuwan Mahato leapt 13.82 metres to win gold. Sher Bahadur Bista of Army (13.53m) and Salim Devan of APF (13.44) finished second and third, respectively.

Best athletes

Army’s Jayarani and APF’s Shivaraj were adjudged best female and male players of the tournament.

Jayarani shattered two national records in women’s 100m hurdles and women’s 400m hurdles on the way to her four gold and one silver medals. Jayarani set a new record of 1 minute 7.2 seconds in the 400m hurdles gold, breaking the previous best of 1:07.7, set by AFP Club’s Sabita Chaudhary at the Sixth National Games in 2012. She also completed 100m hurdles in 15.20 seconds to break the previous record of 16.38 seconds held by Pramila Tharu.

Of the three national records set at the tournament, the third went to Army’s Jeevan. Jeevan set a new record in men’s 110m hurdles clocking 14.96 seconds, bettering his own record of 15.60 seconds. Jeevan won two golds and two silvers.

Male best player Shivaraj won three golds and a silver medal.

APF’s team clinched second position with nine golds, six silvers and eight bronzes. Bagmati won three gold medals, two silver medals and six bronze medals to claim third position.

A total of 240 athletes from seven provinces and three departmental teams had participated in the three-day event.