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Mezbah's third in a row

Sports Reporter
Sprinter Mezbah Ahmed survived a scare from his teammate and won the 100m sprint event of the National Athletics Championships 40th edition yesterday on the meet’s opening day at the Bangabandhu National Stadium. Mezbah clocked in at 10.63 seconds (hand timing) to complete his hattrick of tittles from the tournament.
The 21-year-old sprinter from Bangladesh Navy was the fastest man five times across three different events in a row- Thrice in National Athletics Championships and once each in the Summer Athletics Championship and Bangladesh Games.
And though it may come as a great delight to Mezbah to have established his dominance on the track, the lad from Bagerhat still falls short of the international standard. During his last international foray at the Rio Olympics, he clocked in at an unacceptable 11.34 seconds (electronic time).
Mezbah has even failed to improve on his previous result (10.60 seconds) which he posted during the last edition of the National Athletics Championship. He also fell short of Bangladesh's all time best record of 10.40 (hand timing) set by Golam
Ambia in 1991.
It was almost certain that Mezbah would be crowned champion as the other participants failed to provide a challenge. However, competition came from his own teammate MA Rouf who, participating in the national championship for the first time, finished with a timing of 10.70 seconds.
Rouf and Mezbah were neck-to-neck from the beginning but Mezbah's experience came into play during the last 15 meters as he sped ahead to reach the touch-line before Rouf who must now content himself with a second place finish.
"To be honest, I had to work hard to become first the first time. Previously, I ran in a relaxed mood and reached the touch-line but this time I had to give an extra effort in last 15 meters so you can say I beat him with experience," said Mezbah after completing the sprint.
In reply to a query, Mezbah explained that his performance is not suffering but rather they can't improve the timing due to a lack of training facilities.
"If you saw the fastest man of South Asian Games and third finisher from Sri Lanka, they had two-year training programmes in Australia while the silver winner had two-years of training in USA but we are not given such improved training and that's why we are still behind,” expressed Mezbah.
Mezbah actually felt beforehand that Rouf could prove to be a threat as he did well during a 6-month training course. Rouf also came in very close during the morning heats regardless of which, Mezbah remained confident that he would retain the gold medal.
"I am happy to finish second in my first appearance as I started running only six months ago. I am used to playing football for the Navy and Rafiqe [Islam] sirbroughtme hereafter seeing my running in football," said 25-year-old Rouf, who believes he can improve further if given proper training.
Apart from the tales of Mezbah and Rouf, the overall scenario of the championship was not satisfactory in terms of participation. Due to the poor turn up from district teams and participants of other events, organisers were forced to complete events without holding heats.
"Generally the national championship is held in January-February and athletes get some time to prepare but this time they could not and that is one of major reasons for the poor turn up. Besides, there is hardly any athletics meets in district level, so how can you get new athletes?" complained Noakhali coach Rafiqullah Milon who wants a collective effort from federation and district sports association to revive athletics.