The 33rd National Swimming Championship is set to begin on Saturday at the Syed Nazrul Islam Swimming Complex in Mirpur and for the fourth straight edition, the electronic timer installed at the venue in 2019 will remain unused as the authorities are yet to mend the malfunctioning device.

The timer was installed in late 2019 at a cost of around Tk 4 crores but is yet to be used in any event, triggering much frustration among the swimmers.

Some 550 swimmers from 52 teams are expected to take part in the four-day championship which will feature 38 events and the timings will be recorded using hand timers, an unusual practice in the modern sports.

Due to the use of hand timers, chances are that many national records will be broken like in the previous editions, the swimmers will not get to know their precise timings and subsequently struggle at international meets.

The swimming federation lodged many complaints about the electronic timer to the National Sports Council, the body responsible for its installation, and had also appealed to the parliamentary standing committee on youth and sports, but the matter did not get resolved.

Just like in the official press briefings before the last three editions, the organisers were asked yesterday whether the competition was going to feature the electronic timer and the answer, just like the previous three times, was 'no'.

"We have talked to the sports adviser about the electronic timer and handed a letter to the secretary of National Sports Council. At the moment, we see no solution, so we are going to hold the national championships using hand timing this time too," acting general secretary of Bangladesh Swimming Federation Selim Mia said at the official briefing at the Bangladesh Olympic Association (BOA) auditorium yesterday.

Thus, leading swimmers are preparing to take part in the championship with an eye on improvement and with disappointment in their hearts about the absence of an electronic timer.

Soniya Akter, Olympian and the best female swimmer of last edition, said, "We time and again express our disappointment about the electronic timer, the media also writes about it every time, the federation has been trying to fix it for years but we don't know why it is not fixed yet.

"The reporters may know the difference between electronic timing and hand timing but the general public might not. So, when the media writes about good and bad results based on hand timing, we feel uncomfortable seeing the reaction of the people," said Soniya, who last season bagged six gold medals, created one national record and also improved her timing in the Paris Olympic Games.

Samiul Islam Rafi, also an Olympian and national record holder in three events, said, "We usually focus in the national championships to improve our timing as well as create records but we are not getting the real timing and it is always disappointing."

"Using hand timing is a disadvantage for us because we can't improve our timing," the 19-year-old swimmer from Bangladesh Navy said, "The rankings of swimmers and the federation could have improved if we could have inserted our electronic timings in the national championship in the FINA website. Thus, we are also not making a good impression at the international arena."