Bangladesh Games gather steam amid excitement

The Bangabandhu Bangladesh Games are taking shape after a long break due to the Covid-19 pandemic, with the Bangladesh Olympic Association (BOA) all but finalising the venues for 31 disciplines, including one venue from each of the eight divisions across the country.

The ninth edition of the multi-sports extravaganza, which has been scheduled to begin on April 1, had been suspended in March 12 last year, just 18 days before the event's inauguration. Everything was in place, but the pandemic forced athletes to stay indoors, breaking the momentum that had been building.

However, athletes have been out their confinement for the past three months as they resumed training on a limited scale. Some federations even dared to organise tournaments in order to keep athletes engaged, gave the BOA confidence to take the decision to hold the Games in one phase. In the preliminarily stages of planning, they had considered staging it phase-by-phase.

Although the number of participants has been reduced from 10,500 to 8,500, the number of events and gold medal will remain same, with 396 gold medals and 546 bronze medals on offer.

Some disciplines like football, cricket, chess, athletics, taekwondo, handball and karate have been going on full-steam while most others have only staged training programmes. However, organisers are looking forward to the Bangladesh Games on the back of good preparation. They last week attended a meeting with BOA higher-ups to updates them on training and other preparations.

"Everyone was positive at the meeting and are eagerly awaiting a return to grounds because they have been out of action for a long time," said BOA treasurer Kazi Razibuddin Ahmed Chapal yesterday.

"They were also instructed to prepare because the national federation will take care of everything in terms of staging the respective events while the BOA will bear all the expenditure," Chapal, who is also general secretary of Bangladesh Archery Federation, added.

"We, the archery federation, decided to give archers more room to compete in a different, windy conditions after a long gap. We will hold the National Archery Championships despite participating in the Bangladesh Games, which is considered a national championship for each discipline."

Of the 31 disciplines, most events will be held in Dhaka and BKSP while cricket (Sylhet, Barisal), archery (Kuakata), volleyball (Narail), karate (Bandarban), rugby (Rangpur), tennis (Rajshahi) and weightlifting (Mymensingh) are going outside the capital.

The BOA had before estimated a budget of 38.5 crore for last year's Bangladesh Games but they have yet to revise it for this year.