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Among India8217;s immediate neighbours, Bangladesh is often seen as the most sports crazy. It had a bit of an inauspicious start to its Oly...

Among India8217;s immediate neighbours, Bangladesh is often seen as the most sports crazy. It had a bit of an inauspicious start to its Olympic hopes, though, by getting trapped bang in the middle of a little mess-up at Dubai airport.

On the morning of August 11, Emirates flight 105 from Dubai to Athens was delayed a full 90 minutes because a shooter on the Bangladesh team had brought his gun along. Dubai security, hyper-vigilant at the best of times, said nothing doing, Olympics or not.

While passengers sweated it out on board, airport officials authenticated the shooter8217;s credentials. Apparently he had been ushered into the plane at Dhaka airport, obviously by patriotic security staff there. Even when the shooter offered to check in the gun, Shamsul Bari of the Bangladesh Olympic Association told The Indian Express, the authorities were reluctant.

Eventually they agreed and the Olympics were back on course!

The Bangladesh Olympic contingent is a commentary on the state of sport in South Asia. It consists of four actual sportsmen, eight officials and six journalists, five of whom were on the plane from Dubai, one having already reached Athens. The journalists have, for some reason, been given official status and provided team blazers by the BOA. They were quite surprised to learn that the IOA did no such thing in India and neither was it expected to. Waiting on the plane while the 8216;8216;gun battle8217;8217; was sorted out was a string of Bangladeshi VIPs. The country8217;s sports minister was rushing about in first class. Seated unruffled a few seats away was the president of the BOA, who is also Bangladesh8217;s army chief. It sounded so familiar.

PRIYA HAS A BALL

Another dignitary kept seated and bemused 90 minutes on the plane was Priyaranjan Das Munshi, Union water resources minister and chef de mission of Team India. Das Munshi will be in Athens for only a week or so, after which his duties will be taken over by deputy chef de mission Harish Sharma. Das Munshi ran into a quandary because he was cleared as chef de mission while still in opposition. As a government minister, protocol and schedule problems proved a stumbling block. He wanted to drop out, he told The Indian Express, but as he had already attended the preliminary training sessions, the IOC refused to transfer the chef de mission8217;s accreditation. So Das Munshi had to seek special exemption from Manmohan Singh8217;s 8216;8216;zero junkets-tolerance8217;8217; policy.

QUICK RETURN

Also in Athens for a week is Anil Khanna, secretary-general of the All-India Tennis Association. He is hopeful that Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhuphati will finally end India8217;s gold drought. Khanna won8217;t be around to see them go the distance, though 8212; he8217;s here as a guest of the International Tennis Federation and since Athens hotel tariffs are so exorbitant, the ITF has booked rooms for a fortnight but will replace one set of weekly guests with another on day eight. Khanna, unfortunately, got the invite for week one. If Mahesh and Leander do make it to the men8217;s doubles final, he8217;ll be cheering them on 8212; in front of the telly in New Delhi.