Himalayan Mountain Bike race in Nov

BY A STAFF REPORTER

Kathmandu, Aug. 8: Kathmandu will be hosting Himalayan Mountain Bike (HMB) race in November this year with more than 1000 bikers from Nepal and abroad participating in it.

There will be three series of the races to be held on November 10, 17 and 24, 2001which will have characteristics of festivals, bike parades, celebrity participations and dances.

HMB Director Peter Steward, who had organised the HMB races of similar nature last year in Nepal, said that this year Qatar Airlines and Radission Hotel, Nepal will be two major sponsors of the championship. Apart from these two, Action Asia, an adventure-travel magazine will also be a sponsor of the events.

Last year, there was only one race where first, second and third positions were grabbed by Nepalese bikers. Ramesh Tamang who won the first position last year awarded a ticket to London by Qatar Airlines.

While Radisson will be hosting all the international film crews who will shoot the event and invitational riders plus the gala award distribution ceremony. Qatar Airlines will be flying to Nepal the invitational riders and also will be providing a return European airfare for the series winner in addition to other awards.

The tournament will be an upscale event and is expected to have 200 plus bikers testing their calibre in each of the 3 races for a range of cash prizes, trophies, air tickets, new mountain bikes and more. The 40-lakh event will have some very good names in world mountain bike race such as Barry Clark, who also had particpated in the last year’s competition.

The races will have five categories—Men’s, women’s, master’s, races for sixteen year’s and school children— and will be beamed at least by ten major television networks and can be watched by 30 million households all around the world which makes it the most watched sporting event ever staged in Nepal, Steward said. Special time slots have also been arranged in the National Geographic and Discovery Channels for the telecast of the events, he said.

" The whole aim of organising HMB race is to promote Nepal as very beautiful and adventure tourist destination in the world," said Steward who also hopes that international sponsors will come forward to make the HMB races an important and enviable event.

The event will also encourage the local Nepalese youths and children to take to the mountain bike sports that may be one of solutions for keeping Nepalese youths from drug abuses, Steward said.

Radisson’s General Manager Ken Davidson said that the championship is a fantastic initiative for Nepal’s tourism promotion will be helpful in creating new opportunity for Nepal’s tourism sector.

Davidson said that the races would also highlight Nepal as good adventure travel destination and hoped that the races would be a permanent fixture in calender for many years to come.

Arjun Gang of Qatar Airlines said that his Airlines would continue to support activities such as HMB races that aim at promoting Nepal as beautiful destination.