Two records, two realities as Swapna celebrates while Mehedi waits

After breaking a 22-year-old record set by her trainer, long-jumper Swapna Khatun was over the moon as she, wrapped in Bangladesh Navy’s flag, posed for photographs with a smiling face. Meanwhile, javelin thrower Mehedi Hasan, wearing a gloomy expression and seated upstairs, watched Swapna’s celebration on the track at the National Stadium, despite having rewritten a nine-year-old record himself at the 49th National Athletics Championship in Dhaka yesterday.

Swapna bagged the gold medal after she cleared 6.25 metres, surpassing the previous record of 6.06 set by former national athlete Foujia Huda Jui at the South Asian Games in 2004.

Mehedi, also from Bangladesh Navy, set a national record by clearing 67.35 metres, eclipsing the previous record of 64.05 metres set by Mohammad Moniruzzaman in 2017. However, the Bangladesh Athletics Federation withheld Mehedi’s result for a dope test after Bangladesh Army requested the federation to look into the manner of his throw.

“I don’t have any problem to go under any tests because I did not take any [performance-] enhancing medicine,” Mehedi told The Daily Star.

“I have been waiting here for a long time to give the sample for the medical test; thus, I can’t celebrate my maiden gold medal triumph with a national record at senior level; rather, I am watching others celebrating their medal triumph.

“I was so close to winning the gold medal in javelin throw three times but narrowly lost it to Bangladesh Army, even losing the medal in the Inter-Service Athletics Championship last December. Since then, I had toiled hard to get success and finally achieved it,” said the 23-year-old, who started athletics at school level before securing a contractual job with the Navy following a gold medal during the 2021 Junior Athletics Championships.

Trailing Mehedi, Mohammad Ashraful of Bangladesh Army cleared 63.51 metres, while Shuvo Akunji of Bangladesh Air Force cleared 61.11 metres at the Army Stadium in Banani.

Swapna, on the other hand, was ecstatic to have eclipsed her trainer Jui, who had constantly encouraged the tall girl to break her record, which had stood for over two decades. Swapna enrolled into BKSP in 2019 and previously won a gold medal by clearing 5.94 metres.

“Jui apa was my coach at BKSP. Madam also inspired me to break her record and my focus was to clear 6.20 metres, though I could clear 5.99 metres in practice,” said Swapna.

“I am really happy to make a record today; I did it in my third appearance in the National Athletics Championships.”