Thirty-seven years since a maiden appearance at the Olympics in Los Angeles in 1984, participation at the Games remains a symbolic gesture on the part of Bangladeshi athletes. With the 32nd edition of the multi-sports extravaganza in Tokyo fast-approaching its scheduled start on July 24, six Bangladeshi athletes from four disciplines -- five of whom were handed wildcard entries -- are undergoing final preparations in hopes of emboldening future athletes and making their participation in the world's most competitive event unforgettable.

Despite the Covid-19-induced lockdown and inclement weather in the form of incessant rain, Bangladeshi athletes have not let their focus wane. On the contrary, they have been defying the odds on the path to getting the best possible preparation.

Shooter Abdullah Hel Baki is the only athlete who has experienced the Olympics before. He will be joined by first-timers in the form of archers Ruman Sana and Diya Siddique, swimmers Ariful Islam and Junayna Ahmed and sprinter Jahir Rayhan.

Baki aiming higher with second shot

Commonwealth Games double-bronze medallist Abdullah Hel Baki, the lone Bangladeshi shooter at the Tokyo Olympics, has been training under local coach Golam Shafiuddin Shiplu since the start of April and is looking forward to travelling to Germany for a seven-day training stint ahead of the Olympics.

Internal power struggles at the Bangladesh Shooting Sports Federation and the ongoing pandemic meant Baki had hardly any facilities to rely on last year. But the federation's new committee has ensured facilities and even enrolled him into online shooting competitions so the experienced campaigner could outgun the mark he set at the Rio Olympics in 2016.

Baki is hoping to avail a week-long training programme under German coach Heinz Reinkemeier, subject to obtaining visa and air tickets, before leaving for Tokyo on July 16. Reinkemeier is the former coach of Abhinav Bindra, who won India's only individual Olympic gold medal in Beijing in 2008 in the 10m air rifle event, the same event that Baki will compete in.

"I have been scoring 625 out of 654 in training and I want to transfer that performance to the Olympic stage.  However, I will need to score 627 or 628 in order to make it to the final round," Baki told The Daily Star on Sunday.

Ruman, Diya ready their bows

Among all Bangladeshi athletes, the focus will certainly will be on Ruman, who qualified for the Olympics on merit, becoming the second Bangladeshi to qualify directly to the Olympics after golfer Siddikur Rahman. Female archer Diya Siddique, meanwhile, secured a wildcard entry.

The Bangladesh Archery Federation has been conducting training camp for the Olympics for an extended period, barring a pandemic-induced five-month break. Archers were also sent abroad to participate in the World Cup and Tokyo Qualifiers in the last two months as part of their preparations for the Olympics.

"We have been training as usual at the camp and I'm hoping to deliver my best at the Olympics. It is really tough to win an Olympic medal, we even struggle to qualify," Ruman told The Daily Star on Sunday. "I was in top form in 2019 because I participated in 10 international tournaments but this time my confidence levels are a bit lower. Participating in three international tournaments recently will help a lot because those performances showed where we stand at the moment," said Ruman, who will pair with Diya in the recurve mixed event.

"Diya has been doing really well after her comeback and did well in international tournaments recently. Her confidence levels are also higher than the other female archers," Ruman said, adding that he did not want to predict how far they could go at the Olympics.

French comforts not enough for Ariful

Swimmers Junayna Ahmed and Ariful Islam will be participating in their respective 50m freestyle events in Tokyo and both have been receiving training abroad. Ariful has been in France for more than two years under an International Olympic Committee scholarship while Junayna is in her birthplace of England with her family and training under the supervision of a local club. However, Ariful expressed dissatisfaction over the last two months of his training stint at the Club Des Vikings De Rouen in France, terming the training inadequate for competitive swimmers.

"I'm not doing any specific training ahead of the Olympics. I am following a regular training schedule, which is also followed by other junior swimmers at the club. To perform better in the 50m freestyle event, I needed training designed for competitive swimming as well as access to a gym. But, I neither do competitive training nor have a gym. The coach is doing nothing special for me," Ariful told The Daily Star from France on Sunday.

"As I haven't played competitively for a while, I don't know the exact time. It is really tough to do better on such a big platform," Arif said.

Jahir optimistic after bout with Covid-19

400m-sprinter Jahir Rayhan, who came into the limelight after reaching the semifinals of the Junior Athletics Championships in Nairobi in 2017, has been granted permission to participate in the Olympics based on his status as a promising athlete.

The 21-year-old sprinter has been preparing for the Olympics for past month at BKSP under coach Sharif Hasan. "I could not participate in the Bangladesh Games because I tested positive for Covid-19 but now everything is going smoothly," Jahir told The Daily Star on Sunday.

"Every athlete wants to better their individual time on such a big stage and I am not thinking any differently. Although having a good performance also depends on good health. If everything goes well, I want to raise my senior world ranking to a good position like what I had done (in Nairobi, when he took his junior world ranking to 64) during the Junior Athletic Championships," said the Bangladesh Navy sprinter, who broke a 32-year-old national record in the 400m sprint in 2019.