Sport in Nepal
Nepal is no different to most other countries in the world in terms of the popularity of football. The Nepal National Football Team is by far the most popular team in the country and has been competing internationally with mixed results.
However, football is not the only popular sport. Cricket is also gaining ground in Nepal when it comes to popularity and sheer crowd pull. The National Cricket Academy was established in January 2013, which provides their players with a base for continuous training in preparation for their upcoming competitions both locally and internationally. The greatest achievement so far for the Nepalese national cricket team was qualifying for the 2014 for the ICC World T20 held in Bangladesh.
Below are details of sports, sporting events and sports people related to Nepal. Is there something missing? If you know of something that should be listed here, please let us know.
Popular sports of Nepal
- Football (Soccer), cricket, swimming, volleyball, tennis, martial arts, boxing, wrestling, running, weightlifting, basketball, shooting, archery, badminton and golf.
Traditional or Regional Sports of Nepal
- Dandi Biyo — the national game of Nepal, using two sticks.
- Kho-Kho — the team that takes lesser time to tag all the opponent players wins the game.
- Kabaddi — a "raider" enters the opposite team's half to tag opponents without taking a breath.
Nepal Sporting Success
- Nepal won the gold medal at the 2016 South Asian Games held in India, the men's football team beat India by 2-1.
Great athletes from Nepal
- Gaurika Singh (swimming)
- Sharad Vesawkar (cricket)
Nepal Sports trivia
- Tejbir Bura, a Nepali national, won an Olympic gold medal in mixed alpinism at the 1924 Winter Olympics for his role member of the 1922 Everest Expedition (however as he was part of a mixed team, the medal was not officially awarded to Nepal).
- The youngest athlete in Rio 2016 was 100m backstroke Swimmer Gaurika Singh of Nepal, aged 13 years and 255 days.
- The Nepal men's national cricket team demolished several T20I batting records during a 2023 Asian Games match against Mongolia at Hangzhou, including the highest total (314/3), fastest 50 (Dipendra Singh Airee, 9 balls) and fastest 100 (Kushal Malla, 34 balls).
Nepal at major events
Past sporting events hosted in Nepal
Upcoming sporting events in Nepal
Annual sporting events held in Nepal
Sporting Facilities in Nepal
- Dasarath Stadium - a multi-purpose stadium in Tripureshwar, Kathmandu. It is the biggest stadium in Nepal.
- National Cricket Academy
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