Why the world's eighth most populous country never has won an Olympic medal
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RIO DE JANEIRO — The fastest man in Bangladesh realized he was overmatched.
Saidur Rahman Dawn knew he had little chance of advancing out of the preliminary heats in the 100 and 200 meters when he was selected to be his country’s first Olympian in 1984.
The dearth of proper training, facilities and equipment in Bangladesh hindered Dawn’s preparation and development. The 21-year-old didn’t own a pair of track spikes until he was 16, didn’t receive any coaching until he was 17 and didn’t first run on a synthetic track until he was 19.
Before Dawn enrolled in college and began working with a coach for the first time, he trained exclusively on a grass field near his childhood home. He measured out 100 or 200 meters by hand, laced up his sneakers and then asked a friend to manually time how long it took him to sprint to the makeshift finish line.
“Nobody taught me how to run,” Dawn said. “Nobody taught me how to get into my stride. Nobody taught me how to do weight training or endurance or flexibility or all those things. Basically, I studied how other people ran. I tried to read books about different athletes and what they were doing or what they were eating, but it was difficult.”
Dawn clocked the slowest time in his 100-meter heat and the second slowest in his 200-meter heat at the 1984 Olympics, yet he returned to Bangladesh beaming with pride. By marching in the Opening Ceremony and running in two races, Dawn hoped he made reaching the Olympics an attainable goal for Bangladeshi children and paved the way for the country to become more successful in years to come.
“I thought the government would provide more funding, a lot of kids would be motivated and it would be a great starting point for Bangladesh in sports,” Dawn said.
In retrospect, he could not have been more wrong.
While population rankings typically are a poor barometer for Olympic success, Bangladesh’s futility is still unfathomable for a country with an estimated 160 million residents. Of the world’s 40 most populous countries, the only others without an Olympic medal are war-ravaged Democratic Republic of Congo (No. 18) and Myanmar (No. 26), which until recently had been governed by an oppressive military dictatorship.
Seven athletes from Bangladesh competed in Rio the past two weeks with only modest success to show for it.
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Neither of Bangladesh’s sprinters came close to advancing out of the first round of prelims as Masbah Ahmmed clocked 11.34 seconds in the men’s 100 meters on Saturday and Shirin Akter ran a time of 12.99 seconds in the women’s 100 the previous day. Swimmers Mohammad Mahfizur Rahman and Sonia Aktar both set personal bests in the men’s and women’s 50-meter freestyle last week, but they finished a distant 54th and 69th overall, respectively. Shamoli Ray lost 6-0 in the opening round of the women’s archery competition, and Abdullah Hel Baki placed 25th out of 50 in men’s 10-meter air rifle qualifying.
The Bangladeshi athlete who can claim the most meaningful achievement is a golfer who grew up in one of the capital city’s teeming slum neighborhoods and got his start in the sport gathering stray balls for pocket change.
Siddikur Rahman’s second-place finish at the Mauritius Open in May helped him become the first athlete from his country to qualify for the Olympics on merit. Athletes from Bangladesh have previously only made it via the wildcard system, which grants places to countries that have not met qualifying criteria and otherwise wouldn’t be involved in the Olympics.
“I think this is the biggest achievement of my life,” said Rahman, the 324th-ranked golfer in the world. “I never thought I would make it to the Olympics, but after the Mauritius Open, everyone came up to me and said, ‘You might go to the Olympics.’ Then, I became serious and determined to make it happen.”
August 17, 2016
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