Where is Athletics heading for?

Mosharraf Hossain Shamim is one of the very few lot of talented athletes Bangladesh has ever created. He has the stupendous record of becoming the fastest man in the country for seven times at a row from 1975 to 1981. At present he is the General Secretary of Bangladesh Athletics Federation. He talked to Probe’s Zahid Rahman about the present and future of athletics in Bangladesh.

Could you please tell us about your career?

Mosharraf Hossain Shamim: I became the fastest man for 7 consecutive years. It started in 1975 when I made the distance in 10.09 seconds, which was a record. I broke my own record in 1977 when I took .04 second less. Until 1981 I maintained the top position in 100 meters sprint. I won the national award in 2002. I was Vice President of the Athletic Federation in the past, but resigned for not being able to work independently.

It has been several months since you became General Secretary.

Shamim: Well, yes. I was appointed on 14 August this year. We have not been able to do much as yet. Presently we are more focused on planning. We are organizing Indo-Bangla Game. We are working on the preparation of National Athletics so that it is held in due time next year.

You don’t seem to have done much in the field level.

Shamim: You are right. You perhaps know, a writ petition has been filed by former athlete Mahbuba Iqbal Bely challenging legitimacy of the new committee. So we had to waste a lot of time. Last October the High Court rejected the petition. We however heard that they are planning to go to the Appellate Division. In that case more time will be lost.

What did you undertake after taking the charge?

Shamim: The first thing I did was engaging an audit firm Ershadullah Patwari and Company to audit the Federation’s financial condition from 2001 to 2007. The objective was to ensure transparency and accountability of the Federation. Besides we are organizing a seminar on the problems and potential of Bangladesh in athletics. We have identified some significant lacking. For example, the district level athletics competition is no more held, the universities and colleges have also stopped organizing these events. We will try to encourage concerned people to organize athletics competition in different levels. We will also ask for their suggestions. Besides we are preparing for the Indo-Bangla Game. The Federation is also going to launch its website shortly.

How will you evaluate the state of athletics at the moment?

Shamim: In the eighties athletics was quite popular. Bangladesh has some achievements too. Still Bangladesh boys and girls are winning gold medals in regional competitions. Our main weakness is we are not being able to produce a good number of athletes. We could not hunt the talents spread all over the country as the local level athletics competition became irregular and even rare. Besides there is no motivation for boys and girls to take up athletics seriously. In our days we could at least hope for getting a job. Even that opprunity is almost gone. The country’s athletics has now become dependant on the army alone. Organiztions like BJMC, BTMC, Railway, Customs played a major role in the development of athletics. I think we will have to start producing more civil athletes.

Sponsorship is also a big problem ,  isn’t it?

Shamim: Certainly. Due to the last committee’s inefficiency we won’t get the IAAF fund  we have been receiving every year. The grant is worth 20,000 dollars. The last Committee could not organize the Junior Meet within the AIIF-schdule time and thus there won’t be any grant this year. It is unfortunate; we could have used this fund for the development of our athletics.

Thank you.

Shamim: Thank you too.