Dhaka, Sept 25 (bdnews24.com) – Bangladesh Olympic Association (BOA) Monday sent the entries for 12 disciplines including last-minute entrants judo, weightlifting and karate in the Doha Asia Games following recommendation of the sports minister for a bigger contingent.
BOA chief operational officer Col (retd) Waliullah said, "We have sent the entries for 12 disciplines that included 89 athletes to compete in the December 1-14 games after getting the consent from BOA president."
He added that they had sent entry for 20 in football without specific names of footballers and asked the football federation to send the names immediately.
He said that the BOA president was yet to approve the new proposal, but he agreed with it in principle.
Waliullah hinted that the BOA president might impose few conditions to widen the contingent.
The high-ups from the Bangladesh Football Federation and Bangladesh Hockey Federation Sunday had a meeting with State Minister for Youth and Sports M Fazlur Rahman and justified the need for sending both the football and hockey teams to the Games.
Earlier, the BOA on September 19 axed football and hockey teams from the Bangladesh contingent of the Asiad attributing to their failures in SA Games in Colombo and selected seven disciplines of athletics, swimming, shooting, kabaddi, taekwondo, chess, and golf -- the last three disciples were selected for the first time.
Earlier, the six-member BOA selection committee had considered a total of 26 athletes (three for chess, four for swimming, four for shooting, 12 for kabaddi and one each for athletics, taekwondo and golf) for the Asiad.
Sports minister directed the BOA officials to include football and hockey teams and silver medal-winning athletes of the SA Games, who were not considered by the selection committee.
In the recently concluded SA Games in Colombo, 11 Bangladeshis earned 15 silver medals -- six from swimming, three from shooting, two each from athletics and judo, one each from weightlifting and karate.
That means Bangladesh will compete in 12 disciplines as football, hockey, judo, weightlifting and karate have been included in the Bangladesh contingent.
Although the size of the contingent is increased, the success of the athletes might be few like in the past years since 1978, when Bangladesh first took part in the Asiad.
Bangladesh collected a total of five medals -- three silver and two bronze medals -- from the Asiad till now. Kabaddi got three silver and one bronze while remaining bronze medal came from boxing.
bdnews24.com/2004 hrs
