A Gurkha soldier returning home gave 12-year-old Rai a white Mikasa volleyball, sparking in the village boy a lifelong passion for the sport.
“This was the sport I grew up playing,” recalls the short, balding 46-year-old.
“I used to finish all of my chores, such as collecting fodder or looking after our sheep, and then start playing with the ball, sometimes with a friend but mostly alone.”
Rai was a ninth-grader when his team won a district-level competition. Several years later, he left his home for Kathmandu but continued to play volleyball as a setter for his college’s volleyball team. He now coaches at New Diamond Academy high school in Kathmandu.
He says he was overjoyed when Nepal announced on May 17 that volleyball was going to become the country’s national sport, nearly seven decades after it was introduced by Nepali students who returned from their study in India.
The reason for the surprise government decision is quite simple.
In the valleys and on the ridges of the mountainous nation, sports that require lots of space are notoriously difficult to play.
With steep declines everywhere, a match ball can fly hundreds of metres away from the field, launching a search that forces players to navigate slippery slopes and gorges.
Volleyball matches, however, are played on a small court that can be fenced in easily.
Long in the shadow of football and cricket, the sport is now already enjoying more support. But volleyball officials say the real challenge has only just begun.
“We feel that we now have greater responsibility, but we don’t have the infrastructure that befits the announcement,” said Manoranjan Raman Sharma, president of Nepal’s 40-year-old national volleyball association, the NVA.
Sharma said the association recently had to borrow money to send the country’s national team to Maldives in March so they could play in a five-country regional Asian championship.
The investment was worth it: The team earned its first international medal, landing third place after beating Kyrgyzstan’s national team.
A few months ago, Sharma and NVA’s general secretary travelled to Europe on a self-funded tour seeking support for the sport in Nepal.
The duo visited the International Volleyball Federation, the sport’s governing body in the Swiss city of Lausanne. The trip bore some fruit – the Dutch volleyball federation agreed to sponsor a volleyball coach for a month to work in Nepal.
While Nepal is yet to make its mark in international competitions, Sharma said growing interest among private business groups for the sport’s sponsorship has given them a glimmer of hope.
In May, the NVA signed a two-year contract worth 1 million Nepali rupees (9,820 dollars) with the country’s state-run Rastriya Banijya Bank, which is sponsoring the NVA-run national league.
“The game is very popular among young people,” Sharma says. “They organise small tournaments in almost all districts across the country.”
“But we need to capitalise on this popularity and nurture teams that can bring home international medals.”
Im Thapa Magar, the 33-year-old captain of the country’s national team, says players like him had to join one of Nepal’s three security forces in order to survive as a player.
“We don’t have regular training,” Magar explains. “We are called for training only before a major match.”
“Diet and sports gear that are essential for us are always at a premium. We can’t perform better if we don’t have these resources,” says Magar, who was recruited by Nepal Police to serve in its team.
Rai, the coach at the Kathmandu school, believes corporate sponsorship is the key to success if Nepal wants to become a major player in world volleyball, competing with countries like Brazil or the United States.
“If we are to raise the standards of volleyball, we must prioritise it at the level of football and cricket. The way forward is for us to organise professional leagues and for commercial institutions to sponsor teams and tournaments,” he said. - DPA