Mega contingent with little hope

The Bangladesh Olympic Association (BOA) is set to send a 521-member contingent to the upcoming South Asian (SA) Games, but it is seemingly attaching little hope despite having conducted nearly six-months' of training for the event, which is scheduled for February 5 to 16 in Guwahati and Shillong in India.

The Bangladesh contingent comprises 370 athletes, 99 team officials along with 52 persons from the BOA, different ministries, the head quarters and team doctors. It is likely to be the third largest contingent in terms athletes and second largest contingent overall after hosts India, who will have 519 athletes and 176 officials.

“We won 18 gold, 24 silver and 55 bronze medals in the 11th Dhaka SA Games, but this time there are no events like cricket, golf and karate, which earned seven gold medals for us in the last edition. There has been no lack of training and we are hopeful that athletes will produce good results in disciplines such as shooting, weightlifting, boxing, taekwondo and archery,” said BOA secretary general Syed Shahed Reza at an official press conference yesterday.

The BOA secretary general, however, did not elaborate on the reason for sending such a mega contingent and he also could not could portray any optimistic picture as to whether Bangladesh can repeat the Dhaka SA Games feat.

The officials of shooting, archery and athletics did not sound much confident either as they see Indian athletes as main obstacles in earning gold medals.

“We have good possibility in 10m Air Rifle (shooting) but we have to fight against the Indian shooters who compete in Olympics. If we can beat them, we can even win medals in Olympics,” said shooting federation's general secretary Intekhabul Hamid.   

Bangladesh will be participating in 22 disciplines except for triathlon while some 2672 athletes from eight countries will be vying for 228 gold medals, as many silver and 308 bronze medals in the 12-day SA Games.         

Weightlifter Hamidul Islam, the first SA Games gold medallist, will carry the national flag in the opening ceremony in the Guwahati part while gold medallist boxer Abdur Rahim will bear the national flag in the second ceremony in Shillong.

“Results are outcome of a long training process. We had 13 months of training ahead of the Dhaka SA Games, but this time we have got little time to prepare. There was no lack of interest from the respective federations and we are hoping for some good results from shooting, archery, weightlifting kabaddi, wushu, kho kho and wrestling,” said BOA's deputy secretary Ashikur Rahman Miku, who is also the chef de mission of the Bangladesh contingent and head of BOA training and development committee.