Running towards extinction!

Not that long ago, there used to be a dogfight among a number of teams for medals in the national and summer athletics championships.

Even in the 2018 Summer Athletics Championships -- Bangladesh Navy, Bangladesh Army, Bangladesh Jute Mills Corporation (BJMC), Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB), Bangladesh Jail, Bangladesh Ansar & VDP and BKSP – these seven teams shared 35 gold medals. But six years later, only Navy and Army grabbed all 39 gold medals in the National Athletics Championships, which was held this month.

Apart from the services teams and government organisations, there is still participation of 64 districts teams, divisional teams, educational boards and universities but only a handful of those are able to vie for medals these days.

The scenario is getting bleaker every year and a major reason behind this, critics suggest, is the lack of training and initiative at the district-level, which has led to slow improvement in timing and performance of athletes. For example, Shirin Akter, the fastest female sprinter of the country for a long time, clocked 25.50 seconds (hand-timing) to win a 200m gold in 2014 while her timing in the same event in 2022 was 25.35 seconds, which earned her a silver medal behind Sumaiya Dewan, who clocked 25.30 seconds to win the gold medal.

In high-jump, Mohammed Sohel cleared 1.95m to win gold in 2014 while Mahfuzur Rahman won gold by clearing 2.07m in 2022. Not only that the timings improved marginally, in some cases, performances have digressed too. In long-jump, Mohammad Ismail grabbed gold medal clearing 7.50m in 2014 while Sanwar Hossain cleared only 7.22m to win gold in 2022.

"There used to be intense competition among participants in the 1980s and 1990s. That kind of competition is now absent, so the timing of athletes is not improving," said athlete-turned-coach Farid Khan.

"During our time, 30 to 40 athletes always used to be in the national training camps for five to six months ahead of the international meets, which helped improve their timing. Now no such camps are held under the supervision of the federation," Farid added.

Another major reason behind the lack of improvement and competition these days is the withdrawal of government organisations from the sporting arena.

Once upon a time, government institutions such as Bangladesh Textile Mills Corporation (BTMC), Bangladesh Jute Mills Corporation (BJMC), Customs, Bangladesh Railway and T&T used to play a key role behind the emergence of top athletes. BJMC, in particular, used to hunt and groom talents from the grassroots, turning them into finished products. Those institutions have long pulled out of athletics, BJMC the last to do so in 2020. Although service teams such as Navy, Army, Air Force, Ansar & VDP, BGB, Bangladesh Jail are still involved with athletics, their focus is primarily on roping in finished products instead of raw talents.

The infrastructural issues, too, have stifled the growth of athletics in the country. There are only three athletics tracks in the country, with the one at the Bangabandhu National Stadium -- which was out of bounds for more than two years due to renovation recently -- is usually used for all local events. The Bangladesh Athletics Federation (BAF) has been long demanding the government for athletics tracks at all divisional headquarters, but to no avail.

BAF, too, is directly culpable for athletics' sorry state of affairs. BAF general secretary Abdur Rakib Montu is serving his third term since 2017, but his promise of ensuring long-term training and foreign training for athletes is yet to see the light of day. Sheikh Kamal Athletics Academy has not materialised while the 7-crore-taka School and Madrasa Athletics Championship is yet to be followed up despite 35 participants being selected a year back.

The country that boasts a rich history in the sport and produced some of the fastest sprinters in the subcontinent like Shah Alam, Bimal Chandra Tarafder, Mahbub Alam, it has been in a poor state for a long time with no significant improvement in the recent past.

Bangladesh could not win a single gold medal in the athletics events of the South Asian Games in the last 18 years since Mahfuzur Rahman Mithu finished first in the 110m hurdle in Sri Lanka in 2006.

Now, the focus seems to revolve around England-based Imranur Rahman -- an athlete who neither resides nor has been groomed in the country -- as BAF is seemingly doing everything to bring an end the gold-drought in the SA Games through the 30-year-old sprinter.

Such measures from BAF has drawn criticisms, suggesting that Bangladesh athletics has turned into a one-athlete show as athletes from other events hardly get the attention of the federation.

If compared with the neighbouring countries, Bangladesh athletics has only gone backwards over the last two decades or so. Our next-door neighbours India, who share fairly similar physicality and culture, have been reaping the rewards of long-term planning and investment in athletics, so much so that they have won 29 medals in the Hangzhou Asian Games last year after claiming a gold medal in Tokyo Olympics.

What is slowly turning India into one of Asia's superpowers in track and field is the financial security and benefits that their athletes are provided by the government enterprises, apart from the investment of corporates and long-term planning of the athletics federation, all of which are absent in Bangladesh, resulting in a near-death of the once-promising discipline.