Nepal women’s kabaddi team settled for a bronze medal after they lost to India 61-17 in the semi-finals at the Xiaoshan Guali Sports Centre in Hangzhou, China on Friday.

This is the first medal for Nepal at the Asian Games 2022 so far.

For India women’s kabaddi team, it was their fourth straight Asiad final. India were the gold medallists at Guangzhou 2010 and Incheon 2014 and silver medallists at Jakarta 2018.

India’s dominance in the continental competition was apparent against the first-timers Nepal, who showed intensity early in the game but could not keep up the tempo. India were already leading 29-10 at break with Pooja Hathwala and Pushpa Rana leading the raid and forced a total of five all outs on Nepal to storm into the final.

Despite the defeat, Nepal women’s kabaddi team will return home on a high.

It was their first ever appearance at an Asian Games, and a medal in their maiden participation has also saved Nepal’s blushes.

India will face Chinese Taipei in the gold medal match on Saturday after the latter stunned defending champions Iran 35-24 in the other semi-final clash.

Biplav falls short

Karateka Biplav Lal Shrestha let slip away an opportunity to win another medal for Nepal after he lost his 84 kg bronze medal match to Tareg Ali Hamedi of Saudi Arabia at the Linping Sports Centre.

Shrestha had defeated Umed Safarov of Tajikastan 12-4 to advance into the quarter-finals. However, a 5-1 defeat by Adilet Shadykanov of Kyrgyzstan in the semis saw him enter the repechage round.

Shrestha received a bye in round 1 to qualify for the bronze medal match but ran out of luck losing 9-1 to Hamedi.

Hamedi—a silver medallist at Tokyo 2020 Olympics and a bronze medallist at the 18th Asian Games—had lost his semi-final match to Adilet Shadykanov of Kyrgyzstan 5-4.

Nirupa Dong Tamang lost her women’s 61 kg kumite round of 16 bout to Akther Humaira Antara of Bangladesh.

Nepal women’s volleyball team’s losing run continued on Friday as well after they lost to Hong Kong in the straight sets of 25-22, 25-16, 25-18 in 9th-12th place classification match.

The outcome inflicted Nepal a fourth consecutive defeat in Hangzhou. Nepal lost to Vietnam and South Korea in straight sets in the group fixtures, before falling against India 3-0 in the classification match.