Mukesh Pal breaks 20-year-old national record in men’s 5,000 metres

Kathmandu, Sept 30: Nepali runner Mukesh Bahadur Pal has set a new national record in the men’s 5,000-metre race at the ongoing 20th Asian Games in Japan.

Pal completed the race in 14 minutes 03.61 seconds, breaking the previous national record of 14:04.89 set by Rajendra Bhandari at the 2004 Athens Olympics, according to the National Sports Council (NSC). Pal finished ninth among 18 athletes in the race.

His performance ended Bhandari’s more than two-decade-old national record by over a second. Bhandari had set the record while competing at the Athens Olympics in 2004. —