Games gather steam amid fog

Defying difficult weather across the country, the Bangladesh Youth Games continued smoothly as numerous districts completed the second day of the nation's biggest sports carnival yesterday.

Due to the dense fog early in the morning, organisers were forced to start the competitions a couple hours behind schedule. After the day kicked off though, a few districts completed multiple competitions and disciplines such as handball, volleyball, swimming, judo, karate, chess, kabaddi, wushu and archery. Those districts are now preparing to complete their remaining events within the next three to four days.

Meanwhile Moulvibazar became the first district to wrap up all the events of their district -- football, kabaddi, badminton, table tennis and athletics -- where approximately 350 athletes participated at three separate venues, within the first two days.

“Some devoted teachers from 10 schools came to help us complete the competitions of the five disciplines as we did not face any problem to host those disciplines,” said Moulvibazar's District Sports Association (DSA) general secretary Misbahur Rahman over the phone.

“The Youth Games generated a good response from the athletes and I am hopeful about our district's football, kabaddi and athletics,” added Misbahur.

However even though Moulvibazar completed their competitions without a hitch, some other districts faced difficulties to continue in the face of dense fog.

“We have started the competitions some one-and-half hour later than the scheduled time because of dense fog as the teams from the upazilas were late to turn up amid the fog,” said Joypurhat's DSA general secretary Mahbub Morshedul Alam Babu, adding that the handball and badminton events will be completed tomorrow (Wednesday).

“We could not start the competitions in morning because of fog until after sun rose. We have already completed badminton while other disciplines like football, kabaddi and volleyball will be completed in due time,” said Shariatpur's DSA general secretary Abdus Salam while thanking the Bangladesh Olympic Association (BOA) for undertaking such an initiative.

“As there is less interest in sports among athletes, who are actually busy with smart phones, if such games are held every two years, the scenario would change I believe,” added Salam.

Chandpur's DSA general secretary Golam Mostafa Babu echoed Salam when he said: “Today [Tuesday] we initially faced a bit of a problem to start the competitions due to fog but we completed the day's events successfully.”

Babu also made known that they initially planned to host 10 disciplines yesterday but had to content themselves with six due to the weather.

Bagerhat though, amid great enthusiasm from participants and fans alike, finished their badminton and swimming evens without a hiccup.

“We regularly participate in national championship in 14 disciplines, so there is no shortage of enthusiasm and athletes in the district,” said Bagerhat's DSA general secretary Sardar Selim Ahmed.

Faridpur's DSA general secretary Ahsan Tuhin informed that the football competition's final will be held tomorrow (Wednesday). Tuhin went on to say that though there is already much fanfare over the games in all nine of the district's upazilas, the response might have been better still had school level athletes been included.

Lastly, in addition to the 20 former and current athletes appointed as goodwill ambassadors, who will travel during the divisional and national phase to help inspire the budding athletes, the BOA recruited Mashrafe Bin Mortaza as the 21st.