Olympics glory remains Bangladesh’s distant dream

Bangladesh completed yet another disappointing campaign in the Olympics with sprinter Jahir Rayhan producing a lackluster performance to finish 44th among 47 athletes in the 400m run of Tokyo Olympics yesterday.

Having been his nation's sole representative in the track and field event as a wildcard entry, Jahir had wanted to raise his world ranking by displaying an improved performance but the 20-year-old sprinter stood eighth out of eight competitors in Heat-3 with a timing of 48.29 seconds.

Jahir took some 2.75 seconds more than the Swiss sprinter Ricky Petrucciani who secured the 25th spot and managed to qualify for the semifinals of the 400m event as the last athlete with a time of 45.54 seconds.

The frustrating performance of Jahir, who could not even touch his personal best of 46.86 seconds which he had clocked at the National Athletics Championships in 2019, raised a question regarding the justification of Bangladesh Athletic Federation to select the Navy sprinter.

With the elimination of the last of the six athletes from Tokyo Olympics, Bangladesh's participation in 'The biggest show on earth' has still remained a symbolic, token one even after the 10th Olympics appearance.

Only archers Ruman Sana and Diya Siddique had given glimpses of hope for the future while rest of the Olympians from shooting, swimming and athletics have been far away from the world class standard and light years from the Olympic medals.