Nepal’s long-distance runner Santoshi Shrestha finished the Paris Olympics women’s marathon in the 79th position on Sunday.

Shrestha took 2 hours 55 minutes and 06 seconds to complete the 42.195km distance.

A total of 91 athletes had competed in the women’s marathon, the last athletics event in Paris. Eleven athletes did not finish the race.

Shrestha, however, could not beat her own personal best. She had won a gold medal in the Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Dhaka Marathon with a time of 2 hours 46 minutes and 23 seconds, setting a new national record.

Shrestha was representing Nepal in the women’s marathon on the Olympics stage for the first time in 28 years. She is the fourth athlete from Nepal to compete in the women’s marathon at the Olympics.

Last time, Bimala Rana Magar represented Nepal in the women’s marathon at Atlanta 1996. Nepal first sent its athletes in the women's marathon at Seoul 1988 when Raj Kumari Pandey and Menuka Rawat had taken part. Since Sydney 2000, Nepal has been participating only in short and middle distance events in women’s athletics.

On Sunday, Sifan Hassan of the Netherlands won the gold in an Olympic record of 2 hours 22 minutes and 55 seconds. The Dutch had come into the marathon roughly 35 hours after shooting to bronze medals in 5,000m and 10,000m.

Ethiopian Tigst Assefa won silver medal with a timing of 2:22.58 and Kenya's Hellen Obiri claimed bronze clocking 2:23.10.

The current world record of 2:16:16 in women’s marathon is held by Kenya’s Peres Jepchirchir, which she set at the London Marathon in April this year.

Shrestha was the last of the seven athletes from Nepal at the Paris 2024.

Swimmers Alexander Shah set a national record in men’s 100m freestyle in Paris. Shah swam the distance in 51.91 seconds to improve his own previous record of 52.17 set during the World Aquatic Championship in Doha, Qatar. Shah finished third in his Heat and 59th overall among 79 swimmers, failing to progress into the semi-finals.

Duana Lama also crashed out of the Heat stage in the women’s 200 m freestyle event as she finished last in the Heat 1 and 30th overall among 31 participants. Her time of 2 minutes 20.74 seconds could not even beat her previous best of 2 minutes 12.46 seconds. Gaurika Singh holds the national record in the women’s 200 m freestyle with 2:11.94 seconds.

Badminton star Prince Dahal was eliminated from the men’s singles group stage. He suffered defeats to eventual gold medallist Viktor Axelson of Denmark, Ireland’s Nhat Nguyen, and Israel’s Misa Zilberman.

Table tennis player Santoo Shrestha was knocked out from the preliminary round after he lost his men’s singles match to Senegal’s Ibrahima Diaw 12-10, 11-3, 11-4, 11-5. Santoo is the only third Nepali player to have qualified for the Olympics through a selection tournament after Sangina Baidya (Athens 2004) and Deepak Bista (Beijing 2008).

Paris 2024 also marked Nepal’s debut in badminton and table tennis.

Judoka Manita Shrestha Pradhan could not progress from the first round as she lost her women’s 57 kg weight category Elimination round of 32 Pool A bout to Marcia Perisic of Serbia by ippon.

Shooter Sushmita Nepal exited the Paris Olympics after finishing 42nd in the women’s 10 m air rifle qualification event.