The sporting activities of the country are already postponed and despite the shops surrounding the Bangabandhu National Stadium are still open the ever-crowded places look like haunted house with the presence of very few people in fear of coronavirus.
Rarely any athlete was found during a quick walk in and around the stadiums of football, hockey, kabaddi, volleyball, boxing, handball and indoor venues of NSC gymnasium and recently-built roller skating complex on Wednesday.
The shops adjacent to capital’s Gulishtan-Paltan area, also known as Stadium Para, was also seen almost empty and even the outer field of historic Paltan maidan, which is usually filled up with hustling and bustling of players and spectators from different sports and academies, were also found empty.
All the federations have closed their activities following the directives from the government to postpone all kind of sports activities on Monday.
There were still some teen sports enthusiasts found at the table tennis venue inside the Shaheed Tajuddin Ahmed Indoor Stadium practicing the game but they were also asked not to come from Thursday.
Around 20 karatekas were found at the NSC Gymnasium but the federation coach Mozammel Haque said that his students were not informed about the closing of sports activities. He said, “I told them not to come here from tomorrow [Thursday] until further notice.”
The scenario was expected to be completely different if there was no coronavirus outbreak as 9th Bangladesh Games was earlier scheduled to be held on April 1-10 with the participation of 10,000 athletes before it got postponed.
