Mezbah, Shirin retain crowns
Mezbahuddin Ahmed and Shirin Akter remained the fastest man and woman of the country after successfully retaining their
100m sprint titles in the 39th National Athletics Championships at the Bangabandhu National Stadium yesterday.
Mezbah, of Bangladesh Navy, clocked 10.60 seconds (hand-timing) to beat teammate Kazi Imran by 0.10 seconds to win the fastest man's title for the fourth time in a row -- twice in national championships and once each in Bangladesh Games and summer athletics meet.
Mezbah, however, failed to better his personal best of 10.24 seconds in hand-timing, which he had produced in the last summer meet. His personal best, on the electronic timing though, is 10.99 seconds which he had set in the Asian Athletics Championships in 2013 while he had clocked 11.13 seconds in the recently-concluded World Athletic Championship in Beijing, China.
The man from Navy felt the win would have been more satisfactory if electronic timing was used instead of hand-timing.
“It would have been more pleasing if there was electronic timing used in this championship,” said Mezbah.
Nevertheless, Mezbah felt his performance would help him do well in the upcoming South Asian Games, which is scheduled to be held in India in
January, 2016.
“Bangladesh hasn't won a gold medal in the 100m sprint in the SA Games since 1993 and I want to end the drought,” added Mezbah.
Meanwhile, Shirin won the 100m sprint dash to complete a double after grabbing the 200m sprint gold on Thursday.
Shirin beat teammate Zakia Sultana Subarna by clocking 11.84 seconds to become fastest woman for the third successive time -- twice in national championships and once in summer meet.
Zakia finished 0.46 seconds behind Shirin while veteran Shamsunnahar Chumki bagged the bronze at a time of 12.37 seconds.
Shirin, too, is dreaming of doing even better in the South Asian Games, but she also wants to eclipse the women's national record of 11.60 seconds, which was set by Nazmunnahar Beauty in 2006.
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