COLOMBO CLIPS
Sports Reporter from Colombo
Bangladeshi shuttlers will go into action this morning as the 10th SA Games badminton competition starts at the Sugathadasa Indoor Stadium today.Parash and Hannan will play in the singles events while Javed and Mokhtar and the Parash-Sumon pairs are lined up for doubles matches. Bangladesh have never won a medal in badminton and face the threat of early elimination if they find regional giants India or Pakistan in the first round. "This is a knockout competition and if we face Indian or Pakistani shuttlers, it would be bad news," said manager and coach Golam Aziz Jilani here yesterday. Jilani, a former national champion, lamented the fact that the regional rivals have improved more than the Bangladeshi players. "India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka have always been better than us. But we are now even behind Nepal. We relied on technique in our playing days but now it is all about speed and power. Our players are not built to match this," he said adding that team event is the only hope for Bangladesh in the competition. NO TRAINING FOR SHOOTERS
The Bangladesh shooting team's early arrival in a bid to train ahead of the competition went useless as the organisers have yet to complete works at the new shooting range.The Walisara Navy Shooting Range is the only venue built for the SA Games and Bangladesh shooting team's armourer Ziauddin Ahmed told that the range is yet to be opened. "We and the Pakistani team have come early but all our shooters have been confined to their rooms," he said. The shooting team are staying at the Brownich Hotel, an hour's drive from capital Colombo. The competition starts on August 19, a day after the official opening of the eight-team biennial Games.
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