After a three-year gap, the Bangladesh Jute Mills Corporation (BJMC) returned to cycling with a bang winning all four events on the opening day of the NCC Bank 34th Cycling Championship at the Bangabandhu National Stadium yesterday.
BJMC were away from cycling for three years since 2006 following the then caretaker government’s instruction. But after the new government took over, BJMC restarted their sports activities and some 40 cyclists now work at the organization.
BJMC coach Abdul Kuddus expects to regain the championship to restablish their supremacy after Bangladesh Ansar and Bangladesh Textile Mills Corporation took advantage of their absence to become champions three times each. Over BJMC have still finished top more than 20 times out of 33 national meets.
Kuddus, however, was not satisfied with the arrangement of holding the cycling on the athletic turf, as the cyclists have to work harder to accelerate since the turf has more friction and thus makes them slower than usual.
“The authority should have given at least 15 days to practice on the turf as the boys and girls are used to practice on the ground and road and they become tired after just one to two laps on the turf,” said Kuddus.
“It was tough to speed up and I had to give extra effort in the race,” said Mostafizur Rahman, who was a member of Ansar’s 24km team trail event and finished second behind the BJMC team.
It was seen that most of the Bangladesh Athletic Federation officials were on hand to assist the cycling events and they had no objection to hold the cycling on the turf.
“During the SA Games preparation and the BNS renovation, some heavy weights vans were driven on the turf and that caused huge damage and considering those, it is no problem to hold a cycling competition on the turf,” said BAF general secretary Shah Alam.
