Meera Regmi to Represent Bhutan as Youth Reporter at Asian Games 2026

Her journey from Sports in School Program to the Asian Games media team reflects a broader vision of sport, where every young person can find a place, on the field or beyond it.

When Bhutan takes its place at the 20th Asian Games in Aichi-Nagoya, Japan, the country’s representation will not be limited to the athletes who will compete for medals.

Among those carrying Bhutan’s name will be Meera Regmi, a young Bhutanese reporter who will join the Olympic Council of Asia’s Youth Reporter Programme and become part of the OCA media team during the Games.

Her arena will be different. She will not be competing on the field, in the pool or inside the ring. Her work will be to watch closely, listen carefully, ask questions and tell the stories that unfold around one of Asia’s biggest sporting gatherings. Her reports will contribute to the OCA’s coverage through its official website and social media platforms. For Meera, however, the opportunity is about more than travelling to Japan. It is the result of an idea that Bhutan has been trying to build into its sporting culture: that there should be more than one way for a young person to belong to sport.

The Bhutan Olympic Committee’s Sports in School Program was created with this broader understanding of sport in mind. Sport has traditionally been associated with those who play and compete. But for every athlete who steps onto a field, there are many other young people who may love sport without becoming competitors themselves.

They may have an interest in writing, photography, commentary, event management, coaching, officiating, sports science, technology, administration or other areas of the sports industry. The Sports in School Program seeks to create space for those interests.

Initiated by the Bhutan Olympic Committee in collaboration with the education sector, the program is designed to make sport a more meaningful and regular part of young people’s lives, while exposing them to the wider opportunities and values that sport can offer. Its objectives include encouraging participation, building confidence and teamwork, developing human capacity and creating a stronger sporting culture within schools and communities.

That broader vision is important because not every student has to become an athlete for sport to become part of their life.

A young person can contribute to sport through a camera, a microphone, a notebook, a computer or a creative idea just as meaningfully as another contributes through competition. Meera is an example of that possibility. The OCA itself later described her as a proud product of Bhutan’s Sports in School Program. Through storytelling workshops and writing activities, she discovered another side of sport and began finding her voice through journalism.

That development eventually took her beyond the school environment and onto an international stage. In April 2025, Meera became the first winner of the Aichi-Nagoya 2026 Asian Games Youth Reporter Program in Bhutan.

More than 200 young participants took part in the initial competition, before seven finalists were selected. The finalists were asked to demonstrate not only their ability to write, but also why they wanted to become sports journalists.

Meera emerged as the winner. The opportunity was part of the Olympic Council of Asia’s wider Youth Reporter initiative, which aims to bring young aspiring sports journalists from across Asia into the media operation of the Asian Games. The OCA planned to select 10 young reporters, five boys and five girls, representing its five geographical zones. Meera was the first to earn her place. She will now travel to Aichi-Nagoya as part of the OCA media team, where she will experience the Asian Games from inside the media operation and produce stories during the Games.

For a young Bhutanese reporter, it is an extraordinary opportunity. But the significance of her selection goes beyond the individual. It demonstrates what can happen when young people are given opportunities to discover that sport has many doors.

A different way of being part of Team Bhutan

There will be athletes in Aichi-Nagoya carrying Bhutan’s hopes through their performances. Meera will carry that responsibility through her words. She will encounter athletes after victories and defeats, coaches making decisions under pressure, volunteers working behind the scenes, officials managing competitions and young people from across Asia sharing the same sporting environment. Many of those moments will never appear on a results sheet.

That is where a reporter becomes important. A medal can tell us who won. A story can tell us what it took to get there. Meera’s role will be to look beyond the score and find the human experience surrounding it. She will have the opportunity to speak with athletes and officials, observe the atmosphere of the Games and tell stories that give audiences a different understanding of what happens behind the competition. In doing so, she will also be telling Bhutan’s story to Asia.

The program that is changing how Bhutan sees sport

The significance of Meera’s journey becomes clearer when viewed alongside the growth of the Sports in School Program.

The program was never intended simply to add more sporting competitions to the school calendar. Its larger objective is to create an environment in which young people experience sport as part of education, personal development and community life.

It brings together schools, teachers, sports instructors and national sports federations, while developing capacity and encouraging greater participation.

The idea is simple but important: give young people the opportunity to discover what sport means to them.

For one student, it may be the discipline of training every morning. For another, it may be the confidence gained from speaking in front of an audience. Someone else may discover a talent for photography or storytelling. Another may realise that event management, coaching or sports science is the career they want to pursue.

That is the sporting ecosystem Bhutan is beginning to build.

And Meera’s story shows why that ecosystem matters.

The program that is changing how Bhutan sees sport

The significance of Meera’s journey becomes clearer when viewed alongside the growth of the Sports in School Program. The program was never intended simply to add more sporting competitions to the school calendar. Its larger objective is to create an environment in which young people experience sport as part of education, personal development and community life.

It brings together schools, teachers, sports instructors and national sports federations, while developing capacity and encouraging greater participation. The idea is simple but important: give young people the opportunity to discover what sport means to them.

A young voice for Bhutan in Aichi-Nagoya

When Meera enters the Asian Games media environment in Japan, she will be entering a world that many young aspiring journalists only dream of seeing. But she will also be carrying the confidence of a program that began by asking a much simpler question: how can we make more young people feel that sport belongs to them?

Meera found her answer through journalism. Her story reminds us that sporting participation does not always require a uniform, a playing position or a medal. Sometimes it begins with a question. Sometimes it begins with a story. And sometimes, it begins with giving a young person the chance to discover that there is a place for her in the world of sport.

In Aichi-Nagoya, Meera will have that place. She will arrive not as an athlete chasing a medal, but as a young Bhutanese voice entrusted with documenting one of Asia’s greatest sporting events.

The athletes will compete for Bhutan. Meera will tell their stories. And together, in different ways, they will represent the same country.