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BSJA Sports: Mazharul emerges champion in swimming; Mehedi Hasan Ramin in Chess
Mazharul Islam emerged champions in swimming competition of the Walton-BSJA Sports Carnival held at the Ivi Rahman Swimming Pool at Bangabandhu National Stadium premises on Thursday.
Joytirmoy Mondal finished runner-up and Nur Uddin became 3rd in the event.
Read: BSJA Badminton: Mazharul Islam earns double crown
In the Chess Competition, Mehedi Hasan Ramin clinched the the title beating Arafat Jubair in a keenly contested final on Thursday.
The carom competition of the meet will be held on Friday at the BSJA office here.
Read: Paleochora Intl Chess Tournament: Ziaur Rahman ,Fide Master Tahsin Tajwar Zia earn 3.5 points each
BCB Delays Issuing Taskin's NOC for Debut LPL Participation
The Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) has yet to decide on granting a No Objection Certificate (NOC) to Taskin Ahmed to participate in the Lankan Premier League (LPL) due to concerns about the pacer's heavy workload.
Taskin Ahmed, a right-handed pacer, has been a key bowler for the Bangladesh team in recent years. However, his career has been marred by injuries on several occasions, significantly impacting his performance.
But over the last couple of years, he has been playing largely without any big issues with injuries.
Nizamuddin Chowdhury, the CEO of BCB, addressed the media, stating, "Considering the workload of the players, we have yet to make a decision on issuing an NOC for Taskin."
Read: No county cricket for Taskin for now despite having a call
He added, "The final call will be made based on the board's policy."
The LPL is scheduled to take place later this month, and Taskin has received an invitation to play for a team in the tournament.
While Taskin's NOC for the LPL is pending, Towhid Hridoy is set to receive an NOC soon to participate in the league. This will mark the first foreign league appearance for the talented right-handed batter, who has showcased his batting prowess in the national team.
Currently, Taskin is busy playing in the Zim Afro T10 in Zimbabwe, where teams from both Zimbabwe and South Africa are competing.
Read more: Taskin ruled out, Tamim uncertain as Tigers set to take on Ireland in one-off Test
Alongside Taskin, Mushfiqur Rahim is also playing in the Zim Afro T10 league.
Renowned sports organiser Rafiqul Islam Tipu passes away
Rafiqul Islam Tipu, renowned sports organiser, former general secretary of Bangladesh Table Tennis Federation (BTTF) and executive member of Bangladesh Archery Federation (BAF), died at a hospital in the capital on Tuesday. He was 65.
Tipu died at 3 pm on Tuesday at the Asghar Ali Hospital in the capital due to brain hemorrhage.
He was admitted to the hospital on Monday noon in critical condition and breathed his last the following day.
Read: Sports journalist Masud Ahmed Rumi's death anniversary to be observed Friday
He left behind mother, wife, one daughter, three brothers, one sister and large number admirers to mourn his death.
His first namaj-e-janaja was held at the Sheikh Russel Rollar -Skating Complex at the Outer Stadium in the city.
Later, he was buried at the Azimpur graveyard after his 2nd namaj-e-janaja at the Swamibagh mosque after Esha prayers.
Read: Sr Sports Journalist Hannan Khan dies
He served BTTF as general secretary for two terms from 2000 and involved in almost all the local and international sports activities in the country.
Bangladesh Olympic Association (BOA), Bangladesh Handball Federation, Bangladesh Archery Federation and Bangladesh Sports Journalists Association condoled the death of Tipu.
Read more: Sports Journalist Mustaque dies during play
BSJA Badminton: Mazharul Islam earns double crown
Mazharul Islam earned double crown in badminton of the Walton-BSJA Sports Carnival ‘2023 by winning both the singles and doubles titles at the Shaheed Tajuddin Ahmed Indoor Stadium here on Wednesday (July 26).
Mazharul clinched the singles title beating Sadman Ullah by 9-11, 11-3, 11-5 points in the final. Mohammad Imran finished 3rd in the event.
Read: 37th National Badminton Championship begins
He shared the doubles title with Mohammad Imran defeating Sadman Ullah and Rashed Banna partner by 11-1, 11-10 points in the final.
Read: Scholastica, Rajuk, Shaheed Smrity win HSBC-Mayor's Cup School Badminton titles
Nuruddin and Jothirmoy Mondal pair became 3rd in the event.
The swimming competition of the carnival will held on Thursday (July 27) at the Ivi Rahman Swimming pool at BNS premises while chess competition will also be held on the day at the BSJA office.
Read more: Yonex-Sunrise Int'l Badminton Challenge begins Wednesday
GM Zia shares 2nd slot with nine other players
Bangladeshi Grand Master Ziaur Rahman sharing the 2nd slot in the 16th Paleochora International Chess Tournament A with nine other players securing 4.5 points after the 6th round matches held in Paleochora, Greece on Sunday.
Bangladeshi Fide Master Tahsin Tajwar Zia earned 4 points after the 6th round games.
In the 6th round matches, GM Ziaur Rahman won against FM Drakoulakos Grigorios of Greece while FM Tahsin Tajwar Zia drew with Deligiannis Paraskevas of Greece.
Paleochora Intl Chess Tournament: Ziaur Rahman ,Fide Master Tahsin Tajwar Zia earn 3.5 points each
Bangladeshi Grand Master Ziaur Rahman and Fide Master Tahsin Tajwar Zia earned 3.5 points each after the 5th round matches of the 16th Paleochora International Chess Tournament held in Paleochora, Greece on Saturday.
In the 5th round matches, GM Ziaur Rahman drew with Kormas Georgios of Greece while his son and FM Tahsin Tajwar Zia won against FM Papadopoulos Argirios of Greece.
Princess Diana’s iconic black sheep sweater could fetch at least $50,000 at auction
A red sweater adorned with a flock of sheep worn by the young Princess Diana is expected to sell for more than $50,000 at auction.
The playfully patterned wool jumper featuring a single black sheep amid a pattern of white ones headlines Sotheby’s online Fashion Icons sale in September.
The 19-year-old Lady Diana Spencer was photographed in the garment at a polo match in June 1981, soon after her engagement to Prince Charles, who was then heir to the British throne.
READ: 9 Bangladeshi youths get conferred with prestigious Diana Award 2023
Diana was already becoming a style icon —- and one of the world’s most photographed women — and the moment gave a big boost to designers Sally Muir and Joanna Osborne, who made the sweater for their small knitwear label Warm & Wonderful.
A few weeks later, Muir and Osborne received an official letter from Buckingham Palace explaining that Diana had damaged the sweater and asking whether it could be repaired or replaced. The original was returned, showing damage to a sleeve the designers thought might have been caused by snagging on Diana's diamond and sapphire engagement ring.
READ: Diana's last moments: French doctor recalls 'tragic night'
A new sweater was knitted and dispatched, and Diana was photographed wearing it with white jeans and a black ribbon tie at an event in 1983.
Some have speculated Diana liked the “black sheep” pattern because she felt like an outsider in the royal family. Emma Corrin sported a replica as the young Diana in season four of “The Crown.”
Warm & Wonderful still makes a cotton version of the design, which sells for 190 pounds ($250). Osborne discovered the original lying forgotten in a box in an attic earlier this year.
Cynthia Houlton, Sotheby’s global head of fashion and accessories, said “this exceptional garment, meticulously preserved, carries the whispers of Princess Diana’s grace, charm, and her keen eye for fashion.”
READ: Diana's car auctioned as 25th anniversary of her death nears
The sweater, which has an estimated price of $50,000 to $80,000, will be on display at Sotheby’s New York showroom from Sept. 7-13. Online bidding opens Aug. 31 and runs to Sept. 14.
The record for a piece of Diana memorabilia is $604,800 for a Victor Edelstein-designed ballgown sold by Sotheby’s in January.
Carlos Alcaraz beats Novak Djokovic in 5 sets to win Wimbledon for his second major trophy
Carlos Alcaraz said he wanted another shot at Novak Djokovic. Said it would make winning a Wimbledon championship more special. Well, Alcaraz got his chance to face Djokovic. And he beat him.
Alcaraz put aside a poor start and surged down the stretch to end Djokovic's 34-match winning streak at the All England Club by edging him 1-6, 7-6 (6), 6-1, 3-6, 6-4 in an engaging, back-and-forth final on Sunday, claiming his first title at Wimbledon and second Grand Slam trophy overall.
The No. 1-ranked Alcaraz prevented No. 2 Djokovic from collecting what would have been a record-tying eighth title, and fifth in a row, at the grass-court tournament. Djokovic also was kept from earning a 24th career major.
“Playing a final against a legend of our sport — for me, it’s incredible,” said Alcaraz, who was competing in just his fourth career event on grass.
“I have to congratulate Novak. It’s amazing to play against him. What can I say about him? It’s unbelievable. You inspire me a lot. I started playing tennis watching you,” Alcaraz said, then joked: “I mean, since I was born, you already were winning tournaments.”
That's not exactly accurate. Still, instead of Djokovic, a 36-year-old from Serbia, becoming the oldest male champion at Wimbledon in the Open era, Alcaraz, a 20-year-old from Spain, became the third-youngest. The age gap between the two was the widest in any men’s Slam final since 1974.
So Alcaraz had youth on his side, which he also did, of course, when they met at the French Open last month. That one was extraordinary for two sets before Alcaraz cramped up and faded. This time, he had the stamina and the strokes to get past Djokovic.
“You never like to lose matches like this. I guess when all the emotions are settled, I have to still be very grateful because I won many, many tight and close matches in the past here,” said Djokovic, whose last loss at Wimbledon was in 2017.
Read: At Wimbledon, Jabeur 1st woman from Africa in pro Slam final
“I lost to a better player,” said Djokovic, who paused to wipe away tears, “so I have to congratulate him.”
Alcaraz is faster and capable of more power — serves topping 130 mph, forehands topping 100 mph — but Djokovic is equipped with an abundance of talents and so much muscle memory. He’s been there, and done that, in ways Alcaraz, for now, can only dream of.
But if this victory on a windy and cloudy day at Centre Court, where Djokovic last lost in the 2013 final, was any indication, Alcaraz is on his way to achieving quite a bit himself.
Still, this is all relatively new to him: Djokovic’s record 35th Grand Slam final was Alcaraz’s second.
Yet it was Alcaraz who won a 32-point, 25-minute mini-masterpiece of a game on the way to taking the third set. It was Alcaraz who was not intimidated when Djokovic forced things to a fifth set.
And it was Alcaraz who moved out front for good by breaking to go up 2-1 in the fifth with a backhand passing winner. Djokovic, who fell during the point but quickly popped back up, reacted by slamming his racket into the net post, letting go on impact. He destroyed his equipment and earned a code violation from chair umpire Fergus Murphy.
They would play on for another 24 minutes, bringing the total to more than 4 1/2 hours, but Alcaraz never relented, never gave way. And it was Alcaraz, not Djokovic, who covered his face and rolled in the grass after the final point, then received the gold trophy.
“What quality in the end of the match,” Djokovic told Alcaraz during the post-match ceremony. “You deserve it, absolutely.”
Alcaraz possesses a sledgehammer of a forehand, one he unleashes in such a manner as to make an observer believe every ounce of strength, indeed every fiber of his being, is invested in each swing. The smack of the racket, and his “Uhhh-ehhh!” exhale of exertion — along with the gasps of impressed onlookers — reverberated around the arena on Sunday.
That’s not to say, of course, that Alcaraz’s attributes end at that big forehand. He is so much more than that, displaying as varied an all-court game as possible, which is why stardom is predicted of him. He does everything well, including well-disguised drop shots that helped him get back into the thick of it in the second and third sets.
Djokovic, of course, already has achieved greatness, spending more weeks at No. 1 than any man or woman in the half-century history of the computerized rankings and accumulating those 23 Grand Slam triumphs — one more than Rafael Nadal and three more than Roger Federer, the only man with eight Wimbledon titles.
So often on Sunday, Djokovic would hustle and stretch and slide nearly into the splits to get Alcaraz’s apparent point-ending shots back over the net in ways no one else could.
Read: Djokovic 2 sets down, rallies for 26th straight at Wimbledon
Things began to shift, though, at 4-all in the second set. Djokovic slipped on a worn patch behind the baseline under the Royal Box, flinging his racket away as he fell. At the next changeover, Djokovic flexed one leg by bending it over the other. Before heading back on court to resume play, he plopped his left heel on the net for additional stretching. Soon, his legs were not providing quite the same coverage they had been, the force of his forehand was reduced.
They would head to a tiebreaker, Djokovic’s dominion: He had won all six such set-enders he played at Wimbledon leading up to the final, and 15 straight in Grand Slam action, dating to the Australian Open.
This time, Djokovic had a set point while ahead 6-5 in the tiebreaker, sparking the day’s first chants of his two-syllable nickname from his backers: “No-le! No-le!” But he put a backhand into the net to make it 6-all, and as the players switched sides, a competing chorus of “Car-los! Car-los!” emerged.
Another backhand into the net from Djokovic put Alcaraz within a point of the set. He converted by striking a backhand passing winner off the return of a 118 mph serve, then held the pose of his follow-through. As people in the stands rose to roar, Alcaraz spun around with his right hand to his ear, soaking in the moment.
Two hours and two sets in.
One set each.
Now it was a match.
Now this began to feel memorable.
The fifth game of the third set might have been worth the high price of admission, in and of itself. Neither man wanted to bend. Neither wanted to cede a thing. It was one game, yes, but it felt far more meaningful than that.
Read: Wimbledon wild-card entry steals set, not win, from Djokovic
When Djokovic slapped a forehand into net to give Alcaraz a break — one of five in the match, more than the three combined that Djokovic’s previous six opponents managed across 103 service games over the past two weeks — and a 4-1 edge in the set, the Spaniard threw his head back and screamed, “Vamos!”
Djokovic headed to the locker room with a white equipment bag slung over his right shoulder. He’s used these sorts of intermissions to gather himself and shift momentum and, sure enough, he pushed this terrific match to a fifth set.
One of several reasons to like Djokovic’s chances at that juncture: He went into Sunday with a 10-1 record in five-setters at Wimbledon and 35-9 at all majors.
Those matches, however, were in the past.
Alcaraz is the future.
“I’ve learned really, really fast,” said Alcaraz, who got a hug from Spain's King Felipe VI afterward, "and I’m really, really proud.”
Sheikh Russell Swimming: Faisal emerges men’s champion; Tumpa women’s
Mohammad Faisal Ahmed of Bangladesh Army emerged as champion in the men’s group of the Sheikh Russell 19th National Long Distance Swimming’2023 held in the river Gomati of Cumilla District on Wednesday.
The 10-kilometre men’s competition began on Wednesday at 10:30 am from Kongshawnagar area of Burichong Upazilla of Cumilla and concluded at Dabidwar Upazilla of the district.
Also read: Asia Cup Cricket 2023: Analysis of Group A
Faisal Ahmed covered the men’s 10-kilometre distance with a timing of one hour, 39 minutes and 45 seconds to clinch the first prize.
Sonia Akter Tumpa of Bangladesh Navy clinched the women’s title of the meet covering the women’s 8-kilometer distance with a timing of 1 hour 13 minutes and 20 seconds to win the top slot.
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President of Bangladesh Swimming Federation and Chief of Bangladesh Navy Admiral M Shaheen Iqbal witnessed the competition as the chief guest and later he distributed the prizes at the closing ceremony held at the ABM Golam Mostafa Stadium in Debidwar Upazila.
Also read: Asian Continental Chess: Bangladesh GM Enamul Hossain Razib finishes 25th
Parliament member of Comilla-4 constituency Razi Mohammad Fakhrul was the special guest at the day’s closing function, presided by Deputy Commissioner of Comilla District Mohammad Shamim Alam.
South Asian Chess: FM Mehdi Hasan Parag shares top slot with two others
Fide Master Mehdi Hasan Parag of Bangladesh shared the top slot with two other players in the Open Category of the South Asian Chess Council Chess Championships that began today (Wednesday) in Kathmandu, Nepal.
In the Open Category, Bangladeshi FM Parag topped the points table with India's IM Mohammad Nubairshah Shaikh and Nepal's Silwal Purushottam securing full two points each after the 2nd round matches.
Also read:Asian Chess: IM Fahad Rahman beat Kuziev Miraziz of Uzbekistan in 6th round.
On the other hand, WFM Wadifa Ahmed of Bangladesh made a good start in the Women’s Category of the meet beating her Nepalese rival Riya Shrestha in the day’s first round match.
The first and second round matches of the open division and the first round matches of the women's division were held on Wednesday.
Also read: Asian Continental Chess: Bangladesh GM Enamul Hossain Razib finishes 25th
FM Mehdi Hasan Parag beat Subir Lama of Nepal in the first round of the Open Division while Bangladeshi FM Mohammed Abdul Malek lost to FM Rupes Jaiswal of Nepal
FM Mehdi Hasan Parag defeated his compatriot FM Mohammed Abdul Malek in the second round game.
WCM Jannatul Ferdous lost to Gurang Sushila of Nepal in the first round match of the Women's Category.
A total of 10 players including one Grand Master, one International Master and five Fide Masters from India, Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan and Bhutan are taking part in the Open Category while 7 players from Bangladesh, India and Nepal are participating in the Women's Category.
Also read: Hanoi GM Chess: Bangladeshi IM Fahad settles for draw with Jagadeesh of Singapore
The competitions are being played on round robin league format.