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Bodybuilding

Bangladesh in uproar over viral bodybuilder who kicked away his prize, a blender

Is a blender an acceptable prize? The biggest sports news from Bangladesh right now is over a blender being kicked away on stage by one of the winners.

Bangladesh in uproar over viral bodybuilder who kicked away his prize, a blender
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Jahid Hasan Shuvo caused a furore by kicking away his 2nd prize - a blender - at the Bodybuilding National Championships in Bangladesh last week.

By

The Bridge Desk

Updated: 2 Jan 2023 10:37 AM GMT

Bangladesh loves its cricket and football, but the country's sports pages have all been taken up by a strange incident from the world of bodybuilding for the past few days.

At the 2022 National Bodybuilding Championships in Dhaka last week, a bodybuilder - Jahid Hasan Shuvo - became viral instantly after he kicked his prize - a blender - away in protest at having been adjudged second.

A three-time winner of the national title before this, Shuvo did not take kindly to losing the first place. He asked to speak a few words to the crowd after the results were announced. The country's bodybuilding federation secretary Nazrul Islam refused to allow him to speak and waved him away from the stage after handing him a blender.

Following this, Shuvo tossed up the blender up in the air and kicked it into the crowd.

"Is this the sort of prize a national champion deserves? I kicked the blender away not because I was unhappy with it, I kicked it away to protest against the match-fixing that the judges had done," Shuvo told the media later.

The federation, for its part, has announced its intention to ban the 28-year-old Shuvo for life.

Following the incident, there have been a storm of opinions on whether Shuvo was right in reacting so aggressively. A later video also shows him making indecent gestures in the hall in the presence of the crowd.

However, there have been many defenders of Shuvo. They way the secretary of the federation waved him away from the stage after the event has also been criticised.

A legal battle has begun between the bodybuilder and the federation, while the unprecedented attention on the case prompted the federation to organise a press conference on December 31.

"There is no system of appeals in this sport. We only followed the rule book, and the rule book now says that Shuvo needs to be banned for life," secretary Najrul Islam told reporters.

'Blender d'Or'

While there have been polarised opinions on whether Shuvo did the right thing, the incident has put into the spotlight the nature of prizes in sports competitions in Bangladesh.

The 'Walton' blender which received two kicks but still survived has turned out to be the hero of this story.

Co-incidentally, a blender by the same company was also famously given to England cricketer Luke Wright during the Bangladesh Premier League a few years ago, much to his surprise.

The Men's Physique 170-centimetres plus category event has catapulted Bangladesh's bodybuilding scene into international spotlight. At the centre of the fiasco, is a resilient blender which did not break even after being kicked with force twice.

One newspaper article said with more than a note of parody that the 'Blender d'Or award' is so prestigious that even the likes of Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo want it. The FIFA World Cup trophy was replaced by a blender in photos shared across social media.


Jahid Hasan Shuvo seems to have started a storm around blenders.

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