It’s sadly become a regular scene for the Bangladeshi swimmers in big events like the Olympics and the Asian Games every four-years to get eliminated from the heats at the bottom of the list without seeing their performances improve.
Bangladesh's lone female swimmer at the Asian Games 2018, Khadiza Akter Bristy was a bit behind her personal best when she clocked 1:27.20 to finish 24th out of 26 participants in the heat of the 100m breaststroke event Sunday.
Her personal best in this event is 1:22.72 and in comparison, the best timing by her heat No 2 opponent, China’s Yu Jingyao, was 1:08.52.
Making her first appearance at an international event, the 16-year old swimmer from Kushtia spoke honestly about the reasons behind her poor display, blaming lack of preparation and insufficient facilities she had gone through before coming here.
“We had a very short training camp, and when the camp began, there was no water in the pool. Even after that, the pool was not in the best condition to swim in, so we had to move to [Bangladesh] Navy. Even at [Bangladesh] Navy, we couldn’t continue to practise twice a day regularly,” said Khadiza.
Khadiza was behind the swimmers of China, South Korea, Hong Kong, Singapore, Vietnam and Mongolia in the respective heat.
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She continued, “If I got proper practise and preparation the timing wouldn’t be like this. Our camp began on June 29 this year. A one-month camp is never going to be good enough for preparation in such events. The swimmers we compete against here are far ahead of us.”
After finishing her event at the Aquatic Center of GBK, Khadiza was talking to a Singapore-based journalist who was interviewing athletes at the Games who hail from low-income families. The journalist was surprised to hear that Bangladeshi swimmers weren’t accompanied by a coach in Indonesia.
Khadiza however said her main event is the 50m breaststroke, that will be held Friday.
Meanwhile, Bangladesh’s top swimmer Mahfizur Rahman Sagor withdrew his name from the men’s 200m freestyle event due to a flight delay and lack of practice. Nothing went according to his plan which is why the Olympian swimmer had to skip the event. He wants to concentrate on the 50m freestyle, scheduled for Tuesday.
Former national champion swimmer, Laila Noor was the only Bangladeshi to have officiated swimming events at the Games on the same day.
