The Bangladesh Olympic Association on Monday scratched four swimmers’ names from the list of athletes selected for a long-term preparation programme designed to improve performance at international meets like the Commonwealth Games and the Asian Games next year.
The BOA will start a 10-month residential training programme for promising athletes in January at the Bangladesh Army Cantonment and other isolated venues.
The BOA initially selected 26 athletes from five disciplines – shooting, swimming, archery, boxing and taekwondo — for the first phase of the training programme, but they eliminated swimming after assessing the recent records of the swimmers.
After a meeting with BOA president and chief of army staff General Iqbal Karim on Sunday, the BOA decided not to bring swimmers Mahfizur Rahman Sagar, Shahjahan Ali Rony, Mahfuza Khatun Shila and Nazma Akter to the long-term preparation camp.
We didn’t find any bright performance from the swimmers in recent meets so we decided not to bring them to the residential camp,’ BOA secretary general Shahed Reza said on Monday.
Earlier, the BOA had formed a five-member committee to observe the athletes and finalise the short list.
The committee recommended 26 athletes’ names from the five disciplines but later reassessed the performances of the swimmers and found there had been no positive developments.
Earlier we didn’t assess the swimmers’ timing properly, but later we reviewed it and it did not satisfy us. We won’t bring them in the first phase training camp but in the future we will give them the opportunity,’ said Shahed.
The BOA will next meet with the selected athletes and have them sign the code of conduct papers before sending them to the long-term training camp.
-With New Age input
