Documentary on Mira Rai, the story of a world-recognized mountain runner

Lloyd Belcher has made a short film on a Nepali runner Mira Rai, the winner of Mont Blank Ultra Marathon in 2015. The 80 km long marathon is considered one of the most difficult marathons in the world. 25-years-old ex-Maoist combatant, Rai was disqualified during the combining of the Maoist army and the Nepal army. Rai had a clear win with 22 minutes gap between herself and the second place winner.

mira rai runner

The short film made on Mira Rai is also named ‘Mira Rai’ and is scheduled to release on March 30, 2016. The movie shows how a 14-years-old girl became Maoist combatant and how she became world famous mountain runner.

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Yuvraj Lama's team working to establish a sports college in Nepal

Yuvaraj Lama, the filmmaker, was criticized for taking over the Nepal Sports Council in June. In spite of professionally being a filmmaker, a totally different field, he claimed that he was a sportsman before starting film making. Now, he has started showing how he can do something different for Nepali sports.

Yuvraj recently told that he is initiating something good for the future of sports in Nepal. He said, he and his team are working to establish a sports college in near future. Although, the college will no
t offer a graduate level course initially, it will be  a good start for the development of professionalism of sports in Nepal.

Yuvraj, in his Facebook profile told:

My team is working to establish sports collage in Nepal… first phase it will be plus two..this will be first of its kind..

Dandi Biyo – Is it the Nepali National Game?

Dandi Biyo is a very simple game, and is equally dangerous. Some say it is the National Game of Nepal. But, there is no documentary evidence to prove it (at least, I don’t know. If you have more information please comment.)

I am not against this sports being a National game. But, before a decision is made, there should be certain prerequisite of sportsmanship and safety of players and spectators. To illustrate my point let’s analyze the following photo:

In the photo above CPN-UML leader KP Sharma Oli is seen inaugurating Dharan Sports Tourism Festival, by playing Dandibiyo in Dharan on April 27‚ 2011.

 

Before the ‘sport’ considered a sport, let alone a ‘National Sport’, there has be a standard for everything that is used in the sport. These standards are required so that the competitions are fair and the result of one game can be compared to another. A slight variation on the length of dandi or biyo can have a very different result.

 

Some points to be noted:

  • A sports need to have standard playing gears. The dandi KP is using to play the game is a simple piece of wood. If it were to be a sport, that piece of wood should be standardized in terms of the type of wood, length, diameter and grip friction.
  • Same applies to the biyo piece. Length, diameter, tapering angle and so on should be standard.

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