Hopes on cricket, kabaddi
The Bangladesh Olympic Association (BOA) has pinned their medal hopes only on cricket and kabaddi while it expects decent results in shooting, archery and gymnastics in the upcoming Asian Games, scheduled for September 19 to October 4 in Incheon, South Korea.
The BOA initially decided to send athletes of 21 disciplines but later dropped eight disciplines from the contingent after evaluating results of July's Commonwealth Games. The Bangladesh contingent now features cricket (men & women), kabaddi (men & women), football, hockey, fencing, taekwondo, wushu, beach volleyball, archery, golf, gymnastics, karate and shooting teams, with the last one bringing the only silver medal from the Commonwealth Games.
“As the men's and women's cricket teams won gold and silver medals respectively and women's Kabaddi team grabbed a bronze medal in the Guangzhou Asian Games four years ago, we hope they will replicate their performance this time as well,” said BOA secretary general Syed Shahed Reza at an official press conference at the BOA auditorium yesterday.
Reza was hopeful that shooting, archery and gymnastics would produce good results but was not very confident about the chances of those disciplines winning any medal, even though the BOA has been providing special training to shooting, archery and taekwondo under high profile foreign coaches for the last seven months.
Asked whether the decision of excluding eight disciplines would discourage upcoming athletes, Reza said there was no reason to be disheartened because they would groom future athletes from childhood while the current ones must perform to ensure their participation in the multi-sports events.
The BOA secretary general also explained which criteria has been followed to choose less popular disciplines like fencing, wushu and karate while dropping popular ones like athletic and swimming.
There was no representative from cricket board at the press conference to explain their target but the announcement of strong squads suggests that the Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) is taking the Asian games seriously.
However, representatives of kabaddi, shooting and archery were seemingly not so confident about their chances. “We are hopeful of retaining medals with the training that have had, but still the players may lack match temperament as they have not had the opportunity to play any practice matches. Besides, we don't know how much improvement hosts Korea, whom we beat four years ago, have made this time,” said the women's kabaddi team coach Subimol Das after the programme.
“If I can give my best, I can win medals from any games. I will be trying to put in the same sort of performance in the Asian games that won me the silver medal in the Commonwealth Games,” said shooter Abdullah Hel Baki, who believes it is tough for Bangladeshi shooters to qualify for the eight-man final round of the Asian Games.
“Archers from Asia dominate world ranking. So it is hard for us to win a medal but we will give our best to achieve something,” said archer Emdadul Haque Milon.
State minister for youth and sports Biren Sikder was also present at the occasion and later met the athletes and officials of all participating disciplines.
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