Shaira Arefin put up Bangladesh’s best performance on the opening day of Hangzhou Asian Games shooting as the young gun claimed 13th spot in the qualification round of 10m air rifle event in China Sunday.
The 18-year old raised her score to career best 628 on her debut participation at the continent’s biggest multi-sports extravaganza where more expectations were riding on Kamrun Nahar Koly’s shoulders but the country’s only World Cup finalist was nowhere near her best.
Nafisha Tabassum scored 624.7 to get 15th place while Koly was ranked 27th out of a total of 59 shooters with a score of 623.3.
Both Nafisha and Koly had scored 629.2, highest by any Bangladeshi in the respective event, at different International Shooting Sport Federation World Championships in the last one year.
Shaira participated in the World Championships only once in Baku, Azerbaijan earlier this year where she scored 626 (52nd).
She also took part in three World Cups the same year, scoring 626.5 (15th) in Jakarta, 626.6 (21st) in Bhopal and 626.8 (55th) in Baku.
It was Shaira’s timely rise that helped the Bangladesh women’s 10m air rifle side clinch ninth spot in the team round with a total score of 1,876.
“Alhamdulillah for what I did. I could have done better. Whatever, it was my best. My previous best was 626.8. But I want to do better next time,” said Shaira.
Bangladesh’s Iranian rifle coach Zaer Rezaei told Dhaka Tribune before their flight to China that young shooters had been doing well in training without mentioning any name but Shaira’s performance left no doubt that she was also in contention.
A total of 15 shooters from Bangladesh are participating in the 19th Asiad as the rest of the events are scheduled to be held in the following six days.
Tamjid Bin Alam, Robiul Islam and Arnab Sharar will compete in the men’s air rifle individual and team events Monday morning.
Shaira and Koly will also try their luck in the qualification round of rifle 3 positions event Wednesday.
Early exit of athletes
Swimmer Samiul Islam Rafi, gymnasts Sangkheong Khumi and Abu Saeed Rafi and taekwondo duo Ruma Khatun and Nooruddin Husain also could not overcome the opening hurdle in their respective events Sunday.
The 18-year old Rafi was the last finisher out of eight in his respective heat of men’s 100m backstroke with a timing of 1:00:02, which is 2.29s more than what he recorded in the same event of the World Championships in Budapest last year.
Rafi will conclude his debut Asian Games campaign after competing in the 50m backstroke Monday before only other Bangladeshi swimmer Sonia Khatun takes the pool in 50m freestyle event three days later.
In taekwondo, Nooruddin and Ruma lost to Wahid Khalil of Saudi Arabia and Marjan Salahshouri of Iran in the Round of 16 of individual poomsae to see the exit door.
New York-based boxer Zinnat Ferdous however, got bye from the opening phase of preliminary round of 50kg category and will directly compete in the final stage of preliminaries Wednesday.
Error prone, injury hit gymnastics
While shooting, swimming, taekwondo and boxing are among others which have more events in the upcoming days, gymnastics became the first discipline, out of 17 participated by Bangladesh, to bid farewell after being hit by injury and penalty in qualification.
Khumi could not take part in the parallel bars due to finger injury while Rafi made a blunder to concede penalty marks in pommel horse, informed team official and Bangladesh Gymnastics Federation’s vice president Ahmedur Rahman over phone.
The former national gymnast told Dhaka Tribune, “I’m not happy. Rafi made a mistake and lost four points in pommel horse. He (wearing bib No 1) thought he was warming up when the event began. So he paid for the penalty. But his performance in vaulting was good despite the exit.
“Khumi got injured in his finger during practice and couldn’t start the parallel bars. His performance on the other three apparatus was not enough to qualify for the finals.”
Rafi collected 12.966 points from judges in vault but could not be satisfied with 4.6 points in pommel horse, while Khumi earned 9.57 points in pommel horse, 9.4 in rings and 11.53 in vault.
Cricket, chess, football, hockey
Women’s cricket team lost to India by eight wickets in the semi-finals and will compete against Pakistan for the bronze-medal match Monday morning before female footballers face an uphill task against Vietnam in their second group match in the afternoon.
The chess events also got underway as International Master Fahad Rahman and Fide Master Noshin Anjum won their second round matches after losing the opening ties, while Grandmaster Enamul Hossain Razib lost both his games.
Men’s hockey team, on the other hand, started their Asiad campaign with a 7-2 defeat against Japan before facing formidable Pakistan Monday.