The Syed Nazrul Islam Swimming Complex in Mirpur continued to see records tumble in the Bangabandhu 9th Bangladesh Games in hand-timing mode as the newly-installed electronic timer is not being used.
Following six records on the first two days, there were four more records in the pool on Monday, thanks to efforts from Kajal Mia, Jewel Ahmed, Faisal Ahmed and the Bangladesh Army relay team. The total tally so far of 10 records is nothing surprising as the 2019 national swimming championships witnessed more than 20 national records.
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Yesterday Kajal set a new record in 200m butterfly by clocking 2:10.92 minutes, eclipsing previous record of 2:11.57 minutes set in 2019 by Jewel. Jewel, himself, improved his own timing in 50m backstroke, clocking 00:27.97 seconds. He had earlier set a record in the same event in 2019 with a timing of 00:28.12 seconds.
Like Jewel, Faisal also bettered his previous record in 400m freestyle after clocking 04:18.23 minutes. The previous record set in 2019 was 04.18.25 minutes.
Both Jewel and Faisal from Bangladesh Army were happy to set new records, but not satisfied with the false impression of hand-timing.
“Of course, we are not happy with the hand-timing record because we can’t get exact personal timing. We struggle at international competitions and see a big difference with foreign swimmers in those competitions,” said Jewel, who currently holds five national records.
Faisal said, “Despite having pain in my hands, I am really happy to set a new national record. However, we would have been happier if the time was recorded through the electronic timer.”
In 2019, the National Sports Council (NSC) renovated the swimming complex spending Tk 8.5 crore and installed a new electronic timer worth approximately Tk 4 crore.
However, the electronic timer is not being used to record timings as officials claim the device is not working properly and it is backdated.
“We have not been handed over the electronic timer from the National Sports Council even though the installation work completed in 2019,” Bangladesh Swimming Federation’s general secretary MB Saif said. “We are not using the electronic board because it can’t provide timing of all lanes at a time, so we can’t take any risk which is why we use stopwatch.”
Computer World BD, the service providers of the newly-installed electronic timer, had previously denied all allegations and claimed US-based Daktronics Electronic timer was working fine but the swimmers were not touching the pads properly.
