Electronic timers prove faulty again

Bangladesh Swimming Federation's (BSF) expectation to make a long-awaited debut of the electronic timer was shattered at the National Swimming Complex when the US-made Daktronics device again failed to produce timing of all lanes at a time on the opening day of the 37th National Age-group Swimming Championships in Mirpur yesterday.

Despite the technical glitch of the electronic timer, the 24 events of the four-day championships continued by recording the timing with stopwatches, with BKSP 10-grade student Maisha Akhtar Mim bagging three golds by setting a new record (1:07.54 minutes) in the 100m freestyle of the Girls' 15–17 age group.

BSF general secretary Mahabubur Rahman Shahin on Tuesday said they were going to record the time in the electronic timer, as they found the device, which was installed in late 2019, functioning during the talent hunt programme in the second week of this month. But unfortunately, the electronic timer worth Tk four crore did not work on the opening day.

"The electronic timer did not work properly. We trialled the electronic timer by holding the boys' and girls' 200m butterfly events of U-18–20 groups, but Lane 4 and 5 could not produce timings, while another lane produced timing despite having no swimmer in that lane," said judge Saleh Ahmed, adding that they recorded the timing of all events on the stopwatches.

The local game's governing body also held the day's last two events under the electronic timer, and it was seen that the electronic board failed to show the timings of a couple of lanes on the board.

However, this reporter collected the timing sheet from the operator, and it was seen that the electronic timer produced timings of all lanes the swimmers competed in during the day's last event of the U-13–14 Boys' 200m freestyle event.

"The electronic timers of Lane 1 and 2 did not show readings because both swimmers quit the race before completing the distance. They also touched the steel handle of the starting point instead of touching the pad," said Engineer Ipil Shikdar of MI Tech International, which is providing the service to the BSF during the competitions.

Shikdar also claimed that the electronic timer produced the timing of all lanes properly during the trials, but the problem arises when the junior swimmers are competing.

"The budding swimmers don't have proper training of how to touch the touching pad, which is a sensor, so all lanes can't produce the timing at a time," said Shikdar.