Kathmandu, Mar. 30:His Royal Highness Crown Prince Dipendra Bir Bikram Shah Dev today gave away cash prizes to various sports associations and coaches for their performance in the 8th South Asian Federation Games held in the capital last year.

Eleven national sports associations and 68 native and foreign coaches of eleven games included in the regional sports meet received the cash prizes at the function organised here this evening.

The associations that bagged gold medals were given a purse of 300 thousand rupees each while the second and third ones were given a hundred thousand and 50 thousand rupees each respectively.

Similarly, the chief coaches who stood first received a purse of 50 thousand rupees each whereas the second and third ones got 35 thousand and 20 thousand rupees each respectively.

Likewise, first, second and third coaches and assistant coaches were given 25 thousand, 17.5 thousand and ten thousand rupees each respectively.

The foreign coaches who were judged first, second and third received the cash prizes of 35 thousand, 20 thousand and 15 thousand rupees each respectively.

Education Minister Aamod Prasad Upadhyaya expressed his gratitude to the Crown Prince for patronising Nepal’s sports and inspiring the players to win home medals. “HRH the Crown Prince’s encouraging instructions led the SAF games to a great success and placed Nepal in the second position,” he said.

Since sports activities have earned international prestige to the country, the present government is committed to promote and make them more professional and disciplined in the days ahead, he said.

Nepal was placed second with 31 gold medals in the mega sports events held in the capital from September 25 to October 04 last year.