The bleak state of country’s athletics was evident as 39th National Athletics Championship was concluded on Saturday without a single new record, leaving very little optimism for medals in the forthcoming South Asian Games. Bangladeshi athletes won only two silver medals and four bronze medals in the last edition of SA Games held in Dhaka in 2010 despite taking more than one year training.
Like the previous edition, Bangladesh Athletics Federation held this meet also with hand-timing as the electronic timer has been left malfunctioning for almost two years.
Without using the electronic timer, the athletes, who wished to take part in the SA Games in January 2016 in India, alleged that they failed to know where their actual standard lies.
The coaches and officials also appeared very pessimistic regarding the SA games as the performance of athletes could not impress them in any of the event.
Kitab Ali, former national team coach, refused to comment on the performance of the athletes and only said, ‘Athletes are born, not created. There is no alternate to find new talents.’
The veteran coach tried to compare the performances with the previous results.
‘Late sprinter Shah Alam won the 100m gold medal in the 1984 SAF Games clocking 10.7seconds but the current best sprinter Mezbah (Ahmed) clocked 11.13second in the World Athletics Championship,’ he said.
‘Mahfuzur Rahman Mithu won gold in 110m hurdles in Sri Lanka in 2006 at 14.1 seconds, this time it was 14.4 in hand timing.’
Not only 100m sprint, all the athletes displayed dismal performance in every events.
Noakhali coach Rafiq Ullah Akter Milon, who produced a good number of athletes in the past, could not hide his disappointment being unable to find a single athlete who could impress him with performance.
‘In the past, we had hope in the short distance sprints like– 100m, 110m hurdles in both men’s and women’s catgeory as well as long jump as our standard was just a bit behind the best in the region.
‘But now the gap with other countries in these disciplines widened so much that we cannot realistically hope to get medals.’
Nazrul Islam Rumi, a former coach of BKSP, was not hopeful with the performance of the current athletes either.
‘We cannot be too hopeful with this type of performance,’ he said.
Some experts blamed the timing of the meet as they believed the tough weather made the job difficult for athletes.
‘It was not the appropriate time for national championship, which should have been held in winter,’ said Brojo Gopal Saha, BJMC camp commander-cum-coach.
‘If it was held a few months later, the results might have been a little better.’
Brojo Gopal was not very optimistic but he did not completely discard the chance of winning medals in the SA Games.
‘It all depends on how the federation chooses players and prepares them for the SA Games. However, I don’t see much hope in general,’ he said.
Bangladesh Army regained their top spot of medal tally with a total of 56 medals including 20 gold medals. Bangladesh Navy finished second with 28 medals including 15 gold medals.
BJMC was the only other team to win a gold medal.
-With New Age input
