Athletics, the most electrifying discipline of the eighth Bangladesh Games, will begin today at the Bangabandhu National Stadium but it hardly makes Jahirul Haq Ratan very enthusiastic.
Once known as the King of Marathon, Ratan was banned for life by the Bangladesh Athletics Federation due to a scandal at the 2010 South Asian Games in Dhaka, which he still believes was an injustice dished out to him.
During the 2010 SA Games, the officials made an incorrect decision while evaluating the distance of the marathon event in which Ratan was the chief judge. The athletes unknowingly finished the event running seven kilometres less than the actual distance of 42.196km.
The first and second-placed runners broke the world record which initially surprised everyone but later the mistake was found out due to the objection raised by some foreign athletes.
Ratan claimed he had asked former general secretary of the BAF, Shah Alam, to review the marathon distance one month before the event but Shah Alam did not pay any heed to his request.
But on the night before the event was scheduled to take place, Shah Alam instructed Mohammed Yahia, a former member of the BAF, to measure the distance.
While the distance of marathon was being calculated by Yahia, Ratan said he reiterated several times that the distance was actually less than the desired amount but Yahia ignored his suggestion.
Despite Ratan’s sincerity, he was then made the scapegoat by the federation and subsequently banned for life. The technical committee should have been held accountable but Ratan was punished instead.
Ratan, husband of national award winning athlete Shamim Ara Tolly who passed away two years ago, is now living a lonely life at his Mohammadpur residence and claimed that he received the life-ban unfairly.
Yahia was suspended for three years for his part in the episode which was later lifted and he came back to be awarded with a place in the Bangladesh athletics team as a manager at the Commonwealth Games in Delhi.
`Nobody raised a question about the judgment of banning me unreasonably. Now nobody inquires about me and I am living an unhappy life with my wife’s memory,’ said an emotional Ratan.
`I won the national meet six times in a row but I did not get selected for the national award, however, many received the award who performed lesser feats than me,’ added Ratan.
‘Maybe I cannot pamper the officials like the others which might have caused my downfall. I did not even let my children get involved with sports. I have hated athletics ever since my life-ban,’ said a dejected Ratan.
-With New Age input
