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A humbling experience

ATIQUE ANAM from )akana
The life of a sports journalist can be a pretty frustrating one at times. However, it can be a hell of a lot more frustrating if you are a sports jour-
nalist from Bangladesh, especially when covering major international sporting events such as the Asian Games.
It is frustrating because it is difficult to find much scope to write positively about Bangladesh when negativity seems to be the order of each day during the Games. When a 163-strong contingent leaves such a tournament with nothing to show in terms of the medal count, there idea of finding something positive to write home about seems bleak for even the most optimistic writers.
The other day, an Indian journalist from Tripura expressed his exasperation at the media centre about how he has to hurry from one venue to another in order to catch his country's medal-rush. Asked about his country's success, he practically gloated about how well his countrymen and women have fared. However, when he returned the same question to the Bangladesh contingent, there was a slight murmur among the journalists before it was deemed wise to divert the conversation to something more pleasant.
THINGS ARE PRETTY DESPERATE.
For the first time in 32 years, the Bangladesh contingent will leave the Games empty-handed after the teams in kabaddi - an event which has produced at least one medal in each of the previous editions since it was introduced in 1990 -- failed to earn any medals. The other discipline that had brought medals in the last two editions - cricket - was scrapped from the games altogether.
There were a few bright spots
during the Jakarta-Palembang Games, thanks to the performance of the football and hockey teams and improvements in their personal records for archer Ruman Sana and athlete Sumi Akter, but overall, this has been a campaign that fell well short of expectations.
Mabia Akter Simanta, one who has overcome many a hardship on her way to becoming a first class weightlifter - she is a South Asian Games gold medallist - perhaps knows the feeling of frustration more than anyone else. She had come to Jakarta with modest hopes knowingher limitations, but when even those modest hopes were not met, she could not resist having an outburst, saying 'It's better to not send athletes to these Games without proper preparation so that this embarrassment can be avoided'.
She has always been fairly outspoken regarding their lack of opportunities and the whole system in general but even those who do not speak so loudly against the system were unequivocal in their reply that the preparation and training facilities were barely enough to 'better their personal bests’, a target set forward by the Bangladesh Olympic Association.
What they could not speak of though, was the poor choice of personnel sent by the federations to accompany the players.
Mabia was trained and accompanied by a coach who was a former female weightlifter that retired not too long ago, instead of being coached and guided here by a veteran.
The two swimmers from Bangladesh failed to even get close to their previous best scores and they were accompanied by an official, not by the coach who trains them yearlong.
Sending proper coaches may not guarantee success, but that is certainly a step in the right direction, given that the earlier steps such as training them long-term under
good coaches and with proper training facilities, not inside some shabby gymnasium with obsolete equipments, are taken.
The coaches, especially the foreign coaches in shooting and archery - two events which get more privilege compared to other individual events — spoke of the need for more participation in international events to earn match-temperament in a bid to compete with the best at the Asian Games. The consensus is that without proper training and participation in international events, the targets we have, however modest they are, will in most cases remain elusive. And to ensure proper longterm training, there has to be an investment from the private sector
as well patronisation from the government.
It took our neighbouring country India 112 years to earn their first individual gold medal in the modern Summer Olympics, and that achievement came through shooter Abhinav Bindra in 2008. India had won a number of gold and other medals in hockey and silver and bronze medals in other categories leading up to 2008. But that feat by Bindra, and the two other medals won in wrestling and boxing, showed the country that they were finally on the right track, investing in various sports, not just a few team games. Subsequently, there was a medal-rush in the Guangzhou Asian Games in 2010 and the 2012 Olympics in London.
Amlan Chakraborty, a Reuters reporter based in Delhi who is currently covering the Jakarta-Palembang Asian Games, gave his opinion on this issue. "You see there has been quite a lot of interest from the corporate sector in sports. It came over the last decade or so, when one or two boxers or wrestlers and shooters were doing well. Wrestler Sushil Kumar's feat [he won a bronze in 2004 Olympics and a silver in 2008 Olympics to become the first Indian to win wrestling medals in the Olympics] got the government and corporate houses keen to invest in Olympic events. And now you can see the outcome," explained Amlan.
Some people often argue that we should concentrate more on sports which are less physical and more technical in nature. While this argument is valid to an extent, there is always a way to get around physical limitations with proper training and fitness. West Bengal, the Indian state which is closest to us both geographically and ethically, have produced quite a few Asian level athletes in many disciplines, including table tennis and athletics. In fact, we do not have to go that far for an example. The Bangladesh footballers, who had always been criticised for the lack of fitness that lead to their loss of focus and stamina in latter parts of football matches, have set a fine example this time by reaching the knockout rounds, riding on their improved fitness owing to routine fitness drills and a proper diet. They have shown that their deficiency in skill can be overcome to some extent with improved fitness.
Long-term training, proper training facilities and a focus on better fitness are issues that sports authorities should start to focus on so that next time, the athletes do not feel that they are in the Games to embarrass themselves.