Bangladesh shuttlers deserved wildcard for Olympics: Anayet Ulla Khan

Badminton is most popular in almost all Asian countries. In fact, Badminton is a well-liked and familiar sport in Bangladesh but, predominantly, is usually played as a fun game in winter. But when you count the national and international achievements for Bangladesh in this sport, you may get nothing. Compared with the other vigorous games, the badminton competition in Bangladesh does not receive much attention despite receiving much popularity and huge audiences.

In fact Bangladesh badminton athletes failed to earn any notable success in any high-status tournaments like Commonwealth Games, Asian Games even SAFF Games.However total six athletes of Bangladesh took part in the recently concluded Tokyo Olympics, the big stage of sports, where most of the Bangladesh participants failed to live up to the expectations despite archer duo Ruman Sana and Diya Siddique's impressive performance.

Bangladesh's Olympic record is far from spectacular since it first sent athletes to the 1988 Seoul Games following invites from the International Olympic Committee (IOC). The country of 160 million is frequently described as the largest to never win an Olympic medal.Anayet Ulla Khan, national badminton champion and currently national trainer, has achieved pretty much everything he could've possibly hoped for in his stellar career as a national star shuttler.

But not everything. The former star shuttler who retired in 2018, also finished his career without playing in the Olympics. But he said the current talent national badminton stars under his Coaching feels extra motivation. They dreams to get a berth in next Olympics. "Definitely not playing at the Olympics was my career best regret. As I was the national champion in 2012 I had a great opportunity to get Olympic berth but unfortunately I did not get wildcard finally but I was hopping high to get Olympics wildcard."

Anayet Ulla Khan told Asian Age on Tuesday.  "Compared with the last 10 years, Bangladesh Badminton overcame the Dark Age and the successes are coming in a regular basis. Badminton is so popular in Bangladesh more than other sports like shooting or Archery but it is really disappointing that no badminton athlete is yet to compete at Olympics." Anayet Ulla Khan said.

"Athletes from different disciplines like swimming, shooting, archery, athletics from Bangladesh participate at Olympics in regular basis but they failed to fire in Olympics but I hope Bangladesh shuttlers will surely impress if they get a nod at the Olympics in future. We are targeting the next edition of Olympics and we are desperate to get an Olympic entry." He added.      National Badminton trainer Anayet Ulla Khan who is also the president of Para- Badminton Federation said that he is optimistic about Bangladesh Para- Badminton future. "

As President of Para- Badminton Federation I am willingly working hard to develop Bangladesh Para- Badminton. We have already hosted two national championships, four national level training programmes. Even an international training program was held in Thailand. I visited Japan, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore for Para- Badminton development purpose even with my own expense. Credit should be given to National Para- Olympic Committee of Bangladesh (NPC Bangladesh) for their supervision. I hope Bangladesh Para badminton players will lead our country as flag-bearer someday in future."

Anayet Ulla Khan concluded On the occasion of the birth centenary of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the second Bangabandhu National Para Badminton Championships 2021 organized by Bangladesh Badminton Federation (BBF) was held at Shahid Tajuddin Ahmed Indoor Stadium this year. Previously the inaugural National Para Badminton Championships organised by National Paralympic Committee of Bangladesh (NPC) was held in 2019.