After reaching the knockout rounds of the Asian Games for the first time and showing a great attitude in the last 16 match against North Korea, it was time for the Bangladesh under-23 football team to leave Jakarta and head home, where they will embark on their SAFF Championship campaign, scheduled to take place in Dhaka from September 4 to 15.

The squad is leaving in three segments. 21 players returned yesterday on two seperate flights. However, most of the coaching staff, along with the 11 players who started the game against North Korea, stayed back for recovery and will return at midnight today.

The team had booked a flight after the Qatar match, operating under the assumption that they would lose. However, that historic 1-0 win against Qatar meant that the team had to cancel their booking and subsequently failed to find any remaining flights together.

When contacted, BFF officials in Dhaka said that only the team management in Indonesia could say why they had booked seperate flights.

Sprinter Sumi Akter (R) is congratulated by coach Razia Sultana after beating her previous personal best score. Photo: Star

MIXED RESULTS IN ATHLETICS

As the fastest sprinters of Bangladesh have continuously failed to make an impression at international tournaments, the Bangladesh Athletics Federation had decided not to send any sprinters to the last Asian Games. This time however they sent two -- Abu Taleb and Sumi Akter -- for the 400m events instead of sending the fastest sprinters for the 100m and 200m races.

This decision brought mixed results as the male sprinter flopped while the female athlete broke her previous personal best mark.

Abu Taleb clocked 50.97 seconds to finish 27th among 28 competitors in men's 400m in the morning. He was short of his personal best (48.90s) by 2.07 seconds.

India's Muhammed Anas Yahiya clocked 45.63 seconds to become the fastest in the heats. Sri Lanka's Hewa Kumarage took 45.99 seconds to finish third.

Taleb did not have much to say as an excuse to show for his performance. “I never played in an international tournament before,” he said. “I'm not very happy as I should have done better than this. I couldn't run well in the last 100 metres.”

However, Taleb's compatriot Sumi Akter beat her previous best mark by 0.04 seconds in women's 400m. The lithe 22-year-old clocked 57.16 seconds to finish fourth in her heat and 14th among 18 competitors.

The 22-year-old from Manikganj, who won four gold medals in the recent summer athletics meet at home, was hugged by her coach Sultana Razia as she walked out of the mixed zone with a broad smile.

RECURVE ARCHERS BID ADIEU

Bangladesh's recurve archers failed to get past the first hurdle on the closing day of recurve events.

The men's recurve team, comprised of Ruman Sana, Ibrahim Sheikh and Emdadul Haque Milon, lost against Mongolia by 6-2 set points in the pre-quarterfinals.

The women's recurve team, featuring Beaury Ray, Nasrin Akter and Ety Khatun, lost against their Japanese counterparts by the same shoreline at the same stage of the competition.

The compound archers will be making their bow in the competition today.

CAGERS GOING HOME TOO

The Bangladesh 3-on-3 basketball team also packed their bags after losing all four of their matches.

They started the competition with two close defeats -- 10-7 points against Kyrgyzstan and 17-13 points against Mongolia on Wednesday. Yesterday's defeats were far more comprehensive though as they lost against Chinese Taipei by 21-8 points before ending the campaign with a 21-7 point defeat to South Korea.