The Bangladesh Athletics Federation (BAF) announced a 13-member provisional national athletics team for the upcoming South Asian Senior Athletics Championship 2025, scheduled for May 3-5 in Ranchi, Jharkhand, India.
However, Imranur Rahman, the country’s former fastest man and Olympian sprinter, was omitted from the squad after he failed to participate in the recently concluded national event.
“We selected athletes for this squad based on their performances in the recently concluded National Athletics Competition. He (Imranur) didn’t take part, so he is not in the team,” BAF ad hoc committee General Secretary Shah Alam told today (March 5).
Imranur, who is based in London, explained that his decision not to take part was due to a ‘year-long structured’ plan for other Asian-level events and the SA Games, alongside personal reasons, which he communicated just hours before the national meet’s opening.
Shah Alam also mentioned that the final squad would be confirmed based on athletes' performance—timings and results—during a month-long training camp starting today, under local coaches.
“It is not the final squad. The athletes will be trained to improve their performances in the month-long camp, which begins tomorrow (March 6) under our local coaches. After that, we will select athletes for the final squad who meet or come close to the top timings and results seen at the South Asian level,” he added.
The provisional squad includes three medalists from the men’s 100m—Md Ismail, Rakibul Hasan, and Jubail Islam—as well as the top two medalists in the women’s 100m—Shirin Akter and Sumiya Dewan—from the 48th National Athletics competition held in Dhaka in February.
Also selected are men’s 400m gold medalist Jahir Rayhan, high jump gold medalists Mahfuzur Rahman, long jump gold medalist and 400m hurdles silver medalist Md Masud Rana, marathon gold medalist Md Al Amin, 400m hurdles gold medalist Najimul Hossain Roni, 110m hurdles gold medalist Md Tanvir Faisal, and women’s high jump gold medalist Mst Ritu Akhtar and long jump gold medalist Sonia Akter.
The officials selected for the camp include Md Kitab Ali Male (Coordinator), Forid Khan Chowdhury (Hurdles Coach and Camp Commander), Abdullha Hel-Kafi (Sprint Coach), and Foujia Huda Jui (Female Coach).
However, the BAF did not select three national record holders—men’s shot put gold medalist Golam Sorowar, pole vault gold medalist Md Shorov Miah, and women’s 400m hurdles gold medalist Mst Borsha Khatun.
When asked about their exclusion, Shah Alam said, “We set the top (first place) results and timings of the SA Games 2019 as the standard for our national competition. We selected only those athletes who met or came close to those marks.”
The 13 athletes from 10 events (men’s and women’s) will be trained at the ‘National Athletics Training Camp 2025’ at the Bangladesh Army Stadium until May 1.
Bd-Pratidin English/ARK
