Shirin Akter showed no interest to know her timing despite clinching her 10th national title in the women’s 100m sprint due to the 43rd National Athletics Championship being held on the grass of MA Aziz Stadium in Chattogram, while the same reaction came from Mohammad Ismail after winning the men’s 100m title Thursday.
“I’m used to running on grass only during the university (Rajshahi) competitions but this is my first time on same surface in any national competition. Running on track and grass are two different things because grass slows your speed,” said Bangladesh Navy’s fastest women of the country after clocking 12.10s in hand-timing to beat Sharifa Khatun (12.30s) and Sonia Akter (12.60s).
Ismail took 10.40s to become the fastest man for the second consecutive time, while Hasan Mia and Abdur Rauf were placed second and third with 10.50s and 10.60s respectively.
The National Athletics Championship will be held without any athletic track or turf after 14 years as the 43rd edition of the meet gets underway on the grass and field of MA Aziz Stadium in Chittagong Thursday.https://t.co/8vmWnM9QUB#BAF #ATHLETICS #BANGLADESHATHLETICS
— Dhaka Tribune Sports (@Sport_DT) January 15, 2020
“It’s always nice to win the 100m title but it was not a good thing to run on grass because we are used to running on synthetic turf. Grass slows the pace and also increases injury chances. There is no value of this timing,” said Ismail, who clocked 10.20s to set a new national record last year.
Mahfuzur Rahman, the South Asian Games 2019 silver-medalist, retained the national high jump title with 2.00m, which is .18m less than what he achieved in Nepal last month.
Meanwhile, this is the first time in 14 years that the national athletics is taking place on grass instead of the turf of Bangabandhu National Stadium in Dhaka.
Navy top the table after the opening day with six gold medals while Bangladesh Army have three golds.