Bangladesh Games: Yet another extravaganza

Md Mahfuzur Rahman Siddique Celebration of National Games at regular intervals is a characteristic of the sporting tradition in this subcontinent. During the colonial British era the Indian Olympic Association was formed in 1927. The pan-Indian Games held in New Delhi in 1934 laid the foundation of the Games in this vast territory. After the 'Great Divide' of 1947 these Games emerged as the largest national multi-sport competition organised in every two years. The Indian Olympic Association staged the 34th edition of the Games in 2009 in Ranchi from 21st November to 5th December featuring approximately 14,000 athletes from all its provinces. With the emergence of the then Pakistan in 1947 as a result of the geo-political change in the subcontinent, the Pakistan Olympic Association came into being in 1948. Shortly afterwards the Pakistan National Olympic Games became existent under the auspices of the Pakistan Olympic Association. The third and youngest independent and sovereign state of the subcontinent is Bangladesh. It was established in 1971 through the War of Liberation against the Pakistani occupation forces. Usually National Games are organised, controlled and coordinated by the respective National Olympic Committee of a country. But the advent of Bangladesh Games, the largest sporting extravaganza at the national level was an exception. The first National Games in the newly-established country was held in 1978 before the official recognition of its National Olympic Committee by the International Olympic Committee (IOC). Thus the Games made its debut in Bangladesh prior to its association with the Olympic Movement under the umbrella of the IOC. The Games featured athletics, basketball, boxing, cycling, gymnastics, shooting, swimming, volleyball, weightlifting and wrestling. It was held from 15th to 19th March in 1978 under the control and supervision of the Ad-hoc Bangladesh Olympic Samity (Association). It was formed on 21st July, 1977 by the National Sports Control Board (NSCB), now the National Sports Council, under the preview of the National Sports Council Act-1974. The NSCB abolished the Ad-hoc Committee and formed a 36-member full-fledged committee, Bangladesh Olympic Association, on 3rd September, 1979 which got the recognition of the IOC in February 1980. At the inception it was decided to celebrate the National Multi-sport Games under the overall control of the NOC Bangladesh on a biennial basis. Accordingly, the 11th edition of the Games in the same name took place in 1980 from 2nd to 5th March with the inclusion of 11 Olympic disciplines, in which hockey made its debut. A total of 1387 competitors competed in the Games. According to a subsequent decision, the Games was renamed as Bangladesh Games instead of Bangladesh Olympic. It was further decided to celebrate the Games in every four years. As such, the third Bangladesh Games was held from 3rd to 8th March, 1984 with an equal number of disciplines replacing shooting with 'kabaddi' (would be recognised as the National Sports of Bangladesh later on). The 4th Bangladesh Games held from 23rd through 30th December, 1988 saw the inclusion of Bodybuilding, Judo, Rowing (boat race), Squash, Table Tennis and reappearance of Shooting. The 5th Bangladesh Games of 1992 (18th-25th December) included as many as 21 different Olympic and non-Olympic disciplines. With the admission of Kho-Kho the number of disciplines in the 6th Bangladesh Games rose to 22 and it was held in 1996 following the schedule of the previous edition. The quadrennial celebration of the next or 7th edition of the national sports meet was scheduled to take place in 2000. But two years later, the Games was held in 2002 (11th to 18th March) with more than 5,000 athletes, in which 25 sports were included. After that the four-yearly national sport festival unfortunately lost succession. In the decade of 2002 to 2012 no Bangladesh Games was staged. After the successful conclusion of 8-nation XI South Asian Games in Dhaka 2010, Bangladesh Olympic Association took steps to stage the long overdue 8th Games. But due to financial constraint the effort was not fruitful. After a time lag of over 11 years, 20th April, 2013 has been fixed as the inaugural date for the long-awaited 8th Bangladesh Games. With 31 disciplines consisting of 346 events at 28 competition sites in Dhaka the Games will be the largest of its kind so far, featuring 6,855 male and female athletes and 1020 officiating technical officials. The competitors will contest for 699 Gold Medals, an equal number of Silver medals and 845 Bronzes. The disciplines of this edition, scheduled for celebration from 20th through 28th April, 2013, arranged in the alphabetical order are Archery, Athletics, Badminton, Basketball, Bodybuilding, Boxing, Chess, Cricket, Cycling, Fencing, Football, Golf, Gymnastics, Handball, Hockey, Judo, Kabaddi, Karate, Kho-Kho, Rowing, Rugby, Shooting, Squash, Swimming, Table Tennis, Taekwondo, Tennis, Volleyball, Weightlifting, Wrestling and Wushu. Of them, Archery, Chess, Cricket, Fencing, Rugby and Wushu are going to appear in the Games for the first time. Golf and Rugby are to be included in the 31st Rio de Janeiro Olympiad in 2016. The rests are included in the Games of Olympiad, except Bodybuilding which is not recognised by the IOC. The Bangabandhu National Stadium, the main venue, will feature the opening and closing ceremonies. Competitions of three disciplines, namely Athletics, Cycling and Football, will take place here. The NOC Bangladesh is almost a centralised organisation having only divisional sports associations as one of its constituent units. Naturally athletes, officials, organisers, fans and sports-loving general people of the district level and downwards have limited or very few occasions at their disposal to interact with the Bangladesh Olympic Association and they are not sufficiently aware of the nature and role of the Olympic Movement in Bangladesh. So these Games give them the unique opportunity to know the role and functions of the NOC and have an idea of the Olympic Movement of the country under its leadership. Bangladesh Games is the only Multi-Sports Games organised, controlled and supervised directly by the BOA. The Games helps it to find out potential athletes of the included disciplines and to train and nurse them to be grown up as high performance athletes in the future and ultimately play a significant role in the development of sports in the country. It is the platform which inspires the national Games record setting athletes to compete on a large scale. The accomplishment of a particular athlete is also a source of inspiration for his/ her successors in the same discipline in future editions of the Games. To reap the harvest of this importance of the Games in upgrading national sports its regular celebration is an essential prerequisite. For example, in the last decade these Games could not be celebrated. As a result, a good number of athletes lost the glorious opportunity to compete in the national Games due to overage or retirement. This is certainly very frustrating for the athletes and definitely has a negative impact on the overall development of sports. The Games is a forum for the athletes, officials and organisers of far-flung areas of the country to acquire some knowledge about the role and functions of the NOC Bangladesh and the Bangladesh chapter of the Olympic Movement under its leadership. The sport persons in whatever capacity or role in the district level and downwards have little or no occasion to interact directly with the BOA. Through participation and involvement in the Games they can gather the first-hand knowledge about workings of the BOA, its role in upliftment of sports and the Olympic Movement in Bangladesh. In case of national championship and other single sport meet this scope is restricted due to the absence of direct involvement of the NOC. Therefore, this orientation with the activities of the BOA and the Olympic Movement of the country constitutes another Olympic significance of the Bangladesh Games. For the first time in the 35 years history of the Games, divisional sports associations, the constituent units of BOA and 64 district sports associations are being involved in the ritual of torch relay. They will arrange this relay in their respective jurisdiction. Moreover, in the simultaneous audio-visual presentation on big screens the sports loving people of the divisional and district levels will enjoy the opening and closing ceremonies. Both torch relay and the above ceremonies are the national editions of the Olympic rituals and certainly possesses the Olympic significance. The mission of celebrating the Bangladesh Games should be to find out the talents of different disciplines and rear them as elite athletes in future so that they can improve their financial condition and contribute to development of sports in Bangladesh. It can be remembered that this objective of the Bangladesh Games has been echoed in the valuable speech delivered by the President of the Bangladesh Olympic Association and Chief of Bangladesh Army General Abdul Karim Bhuiyan, psc in the inaugural meeting of the Organising Committee of the Games held on 25th February, 2013 at the NSC Tower. So if possible a portion of the amount donated by the sponsors can be saved, it may be utilised for training and financial support to the poor potential athletes emerging from the Games. Moreover, the sponsors of the Bangladesh Games may be persuaded to sponsor at least one such athlete having the potentiality to grow up as high performing one in the concerned discipline. This will be a real success of the marketing strategy of the BOA. Without an effective marketing policy the BOA can't be self-supporting. This is an age of professionalism and over commercialisation of Games and sports. Against the backdrop of the ever growing role of media in promotion of Olympics and other sports competitions the success of a marketing strategy is solely dependent on media attention. Only the better performing athletes can draw the joint attention of the sponsors and the media. Athletes and only athletes with extraordinary performing ability have the power to attract sponsors in sporting events utilising their wide media coverage. Therefore, the overarching aim of the Bangladesh Games should be directed towards the proper exploitation of the potentiality of our sporting talents to add to their performing skill in international competitions and thereby enthuse our disinterested youths in sports and also inspire the enthusiastic sponsoring organisations to be the partners of the BOA in the development of sports in our country.