Ruman Sana excluded from IOC scholarship

Country's ace archer Ruman Sana was surprisingly not among the five athletes who were awarded a two-year long scholarship last month under the International Olympic Committee's (IOC) Paris 2024 Olympic Solidarity Scholarships.

The recipients of the scholarship, given as part of preparation for the forthcoming Olympic Games, are archers Diya Siddique, Hakim Ahmed Rubel, Abdur Rahman Alif, and shooters Rabbi Hasan Munna and Nafisa Tabassum.

Bangladesh Olympic Solidarity Committee has proposed to hand each athlete 40,000 takas per month from last July as the IOC will provide each athlete 1,562 US dollars per month as part of wages of athlete, coaches, instruments and participation fees for the qualifying tournaments of the Paris Olympic, informed Bangladesh Olympic Association (BOA) general secretary, Fakhruddin Haider.

However, the selection of the 16-year-old Alif ahead of Ruman Sana -- who was awarded the same scholarship for Tokyo Olympics before he qualified for the Olympics directly as the second-ever Bangladeshi athlete -- raised the question recently and the Bangladesh Archery Federation general secretary, Razib Uddin Ahmed Chapal, said that performance was prioritised over experience during the archers' selection.

Asked whether BOA could have provided more athletes under the same scholarships, BOA general secretary replied, "We could have selected more athletes but we could not do it because we also have to bear other expenses like coaches' wages, instruments and travel costs for the qualifying tournaments."