Bangladesh's battle in the pool is still with itself

Bangladeshi swimmers Mahfuza Khatun Shila and Mosharraf Hossain have brought joy to the country through their performances at the South Asian (SA) Games pool. The red-green flag has been repeatedly flown on the South Asian stage of excellence.

But when this regional success takes a continental form, Bangladeshi swimming faces a harsh reality.

If we analyse Bangladesh's performance in the pool of the Asian Games, it can be seen that the team's fight here is not mainly for medals, but to improve their timing by going into heats. In the long history of the Asiad, Bangladesh has won medals in cricket or kabaddi, but not claimed any medals in swimming. Like every other time, the red-green team will go to the 20th Asian Games to be held in Nagoya, Japan next September without any expectations.

At every Asian Games, Bangladeshi swimmers lag far behind in terms of timing in the crowd of world swimming superpowers like China, Japan or South Korea. As a result, being eliminated from the heats has become a destiny. Even if they don't bag a medal, swimmers mainly choose this big stage as a means to break themselves and set career-best timings, as Samiul Islam Rafi did in the last Hangzhou Asian Games with a time of 27.2 seconds, which was his career-best timing.

At that time, the question arose, why do those who clinch gold in the regional SA Games lose their way in the Asiad? The main reason for this is the huge gap in timing. Winning a gold medal in South Asia, that particular timing will only get one at the bottom of the heats in the Asian Games. And this huge gap is being created due to years of structural crisis and lack of foresight.

Talking about the upcoming Asiad, Syed Aminul Haque Dewan Sajal, the general secretary of the new ad-hoc committee of the swimming federation and former gold-winning swimmer, frankly admitted the naked truth. Regarding his expectations for the Games, he clearly said, "I am not expecting any medals from the Asian Games, just that the timing will be a little better from here. We have no goal other than this. This is the reality and the truth. No one ever expected us to go to the Asian Games and do something so extraordinary because everyone has one target in the subcontinent, that is the SA Games. We do not have any long-term plan, nor expectations from the Asian Games."

The sports organiser blames the lack of long-term planning for the dearth of medals in the international arena. Sajal strongly criticised the short-term camps held before the games, saying, "Nothing will happen without planning. You cannot expect anything good by training for two-three months before the SA Games, Commonwealth or Asian Games. It is not possible to maintain your mark at the international level without long-term training. Two or three-month camps do not improve the game, but rather waste money."

However, amidst all the disappointments and limitations, Bangladesh is currently continuing its Asiad camp at the Mirpur swimming pool. If everything goes well, Mahmudun Nabi Nahid of the Bangladesh Navy and Mukti Khatun of the Bangladesh Army will represent the red-green team in this year's Asian Games. Their main goal is to gain experience from this mega event and do well in the future SA Games and surpass their previous timings.

Sajal also provided a practical explanation to the myth that there is no shortage of swimmers in Bangladesh, a river-based country. According to him, swimming to save lives in rivers and competitive swimming in pools are completely different things.

However, the hope is that the swimming federation is also following the grand plan of talent hunt that the government has taken up from the grassroots level. If the initiative of selecting talents from the village, union and upazila levels and providing them with five to eight years of long-term training at Bangladesh Krira Shikkha Protishthan is properly implemented, it may be the beginning of a new day in swimming in the country.