By Azad Majumder
Dhaka, July 17 (EFE).- Sagor Islam did not hear the word Olympics until he became a teenager.
Five years ago, when Ruman Shana became the first-ever Bangladeshi archer to qualify for Tokyo 2020, Sagor had just taken admission to the country’s lone sports education school in the archery discipline.
“I saw how people gave attention to Shana after he qualified for the Olympics. Since then, it has become my dream to participate in an Olympics,” Sagor told EFE during the break of a training session in Togni on the outskirts of the capital, Dhaka.
Before the next Olympics in Paris, the attention shifted to Sagor, an 18-year-old gangling boy hailing from the northern divisional city of Rajshahi, who became the only athlete from the country of 170 million people to get direct entry to the Games.
Bangladesh, the most populous country to never win an Olympic medal, will send five athletes to Paris, but apart from Sagor, the rest—two swimmers, a shooter, and a sprinter—will go there owing to wildcards handed out by their respective international federations.
Sagor secured a spot in this year’s Paris Olympics when he moved to the semifinals of the men’s individual recurve event in the Archery World Cup Stage-3 in Turkey, the final qualification event, in June.
“I was always confident in my qualification chances. My coaches never allowed me to lose my focus,” Sagor said, still panting after an intense session under German coach Martin Frederic.
Sagor, the youngest of four siblings, who lost his father at the age of three and was raised by his mother, a tea stall owner, has already been rewarded financially by his sponsor upon his return from Turkey after the Olympic qualifications.
Sagor is aware that his reward will multiply manifold should he win a medal at the Olympics, a monumental task that his coach believes is too much of an ask from a teenager with no history to back him up.
“We have, of course, the goal of going forward as far as possible,” said Frederic, who has been in charge of Bangladesh’s archery team for six years.
“But it is a tough task. We have the best 64 men qualified. They include Olympic medalists, former medalists, world champions, and world record holders.
“So, I do not really want to talk about the medal, maybe the quarterfinal will be a good goal. But everything is possible, depending on the day’s form.
“We don’t want to give up that goal, but his best 17 on the world stage, so a top-10 finish is still something, break the ice,” Frederic added.
The German coach insisted that Bangladesh’s focus was to ensure the qualification of more players in future events in order to break the duck at the Olympics.
«Now that we have a single place, in the future, I want to qualify with the team. I want to qualify with men and women, and then you have more options to win a medal,» he said.
Sagor is the only Bangladeshi athlete to qualify for the Olympics in his own right, after golfer Siddikur Rahman in Rio de Janeiro 2016 and fellow archer Shana in Tokyo 2020.
Bangladesh Olympic Association secretary general Syed Shahed Reza blamed the country’s paucity of funds for its lack of success at the Olympics.
“We don’t have enough money to train our athletes. For any success, first we need training, to follow a long-term process, bring in a foreign coach, send athletes abroad for training, and after a certain time we will be prepared for a medal,” he said.
“Bringing a coach just before three months’ notice won’t give you success,” Reza added.
Asif Hossain Khan, a Bangladeshi shooter who won the gold medal in the 10-meter air rifle event at the 2002 Commonwealth Games in Manchester, refuted the claim.
“You don’t need a budget to dream,” Asif said. “We have seen many athletes succeed without being backed by resources. For a country like ours, you first need the heart (to do it) and (then) work hard towards your goal,” he said.
Asif beat India’s Abhinav Bindra on his way to winning a gold medal at the Manchester Commonwealth Games.
Bindra became India’s first individual Olympics gold medalist six years later in Beijing, while Asif was lost in the wilderness after being beaten by police following a squabble in 2006. EFE
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