Divisional phase starts today
The standard of athletes in the inaugural Bangladesh Youth Games will be judged from today when the divisional phase gets underway at different divisional headquarters with the participation of all 64 districts.
The first phase of the inaugural U-17 Youth Games started last month at district level with nearly 23,500 athletes from around 500 upazilas taking part in 20 different disciplines. The number has been reduced to nearly 3500 athletes, who will be competing for their respective districts to qualify for the final and national phase to be held in March in Dhaka.
Dhaka, Chittagong and Sylhet will hold all disciplines at their respective divisional headquarters while Rajshahi, Khulna, Barisal, Rangpur and Mymensingh will include a few other districts to complete the divisional phase of the games.
“We could not judge the actual standard of the athletes properly during the district phase due to some limitations. We will now provide them with logistical support and strengthen the monitoring system at the divisional phase to record their performance because we want to hunt talents from different disciplines for further training,” Bangladesh Olympic Association (BOA) secretary general Syed Shahed Reza said at a press conference yesterday.
“We believe there are a lot of things to learn as we have taken a big initiative to hold the games across the country. After the completion of the games, we will form a committee to find out the loopholes so that we can take proper steps in future,” said Reza.
Though the divisional phase was supposed to feature all 20 disciplines, the BOA has excluded seven disciplines -- basketball, hockey, archery, judo, shooting, wushu and taekwondo -- due to the shortage of participating teams at the divisional level.
“As those seven disciplines are played on only regional basis and we did not get enough teams, we have dropped those disciplines at divisional phase but the athletes of those disciplines will have the opportunity to take part in the final phase,” said BOA deputy secretary general Ashikur Rahman Miku, who is also member secretary of the games' steering committee.
Football will have the highest participation with 54 districts, followed by athletics (53 districts), kabaddi (48 districts), badminton (43 districts) and volleyball (40 districts) while swimming, handball, boxing, chess, karate and table tennis will be participated by more than 20 districts.
Replying to a query, Miku said, “There are enough infrastructures to hold the disciplines at divisional headquarters of Dhaka, Chittagong and Sylhet but Khulna, Rajshahi, Rangpur, Barisal and Mymensingh will hold their disciplines in different districts as well as divisional headquarters.”
Meanwhile, some 20 sports ambassadors will visit the divisional venues to inspire the budding athletes.
“Mashrafe [Bin Mortaza] will not be able to visit any venue due to his engagement in cricket, but the other sports ambassadors including former and current players will visit their respective divisional venues to inspire the athletes,” informed BOA vice president and media committee chairman Bashir Ahmed.