Bangladesh News

Bangladesh’s gold medal hopes narrowed down at the 10th South Asian Games here yesterday when two reigning champions failed to live up to the billing.

After female shooter Sharmin Akhter, gold medalist in Pakistan two years ago, had to settle for silver in the 10m air rifle individual and team events, it was Rubel Rana’s turn to frustrate the Bangladesh contingent.

A surprise 100m backstroke gold medalist at Islamabad, Rubel even failed to grab a medal as he finished a depressing fifth at the Sugathadasa Indoor Stadium Swimming Pool.

It was a pity to see him only better his own timing, reaching the block in 1:01.57s (previous timing 1:02.78s) but fall behind Indian and Sri Lankan swimmers. The gold went to the host country, Andrew Abeysinghe bagging his second swimming gold, while India’s Arjun Muralidharan took the silver.

The day, however, was rather productive as Bangladesh added four silver medals and one bronze to their tally.

After Sharmin won individual silver and the team silver with Suraiya Akhter, Jewel Ahmed claimed the 100m butterfly silver, his second at the Games.

A 50m butterfly silver medalist two days earlier, Jewel finished the 100m in 58.89s with India’s Arjun Muralidhara winning gold in 56.67s. Bangladesh’s Rafiqul Islam finished fifth.

The men’s 4×100m relay team — Reazul Karim, Kamal Hossain, Rafiqul Islam and Nazrul Islam — surprised the Lankans to win silver in 3:44.64s. The Lankans timed 3:44.92s for bronze and the Indians, lifted gold in 3:37.41s.

Afsana Talukder finished seventh in women’s 100m freestyle.

Bidyut Kumar Roy won a weightlifting bronze in 95kg while three boxers, who received heavy blows from Indian and Nepalese opponents in the semifinals, have confirmed bronze medals despite elimination. They are Mahmud Ali (54kg), Abdur Rahim (60kg) and Umar Ali (64).

Meanwhile, Sri Lanka confirmed a semifinal berth in football with a 4-0 thrashing of Bhutan in their last group match. They ended level on six points with Maldives, who crushed Pakistan 3-1 in the day’s other match. The hosts, however, enjoy a superior goal difference.

The fate of the other semifinalists from Group A would be decided after tomorrow’s Pakistan-Bhutan game. Pakistan also have three points and must beat Bhutan by a margin of two goals to topple Maldives.

India led the medal table with 37 gold, 14 silver, six bronze till filing of this report, followed by Sri Lanka (6-15-23), Pakistan (4-13-14), Nepal (1-0-4) and Bangladesh (0-6-8). Afghanistan, Maldives and Bhutan are yet to strike a medal.