Officials from the Asian country have signed an in-principle agreement with the North West London Borough paving the way for its athletes, coaches and officials to train and live there in the build-up to the Games.

 

It follows a tour of competition venues in London and the South East in November and a two-day tour of Harrow, which has many residents of Bangladeshi origin.

 

Golam Chowdhury, a Harrow Councillor who is from Bangladesh, made trips to his home country to seal the deal.

 

He said: “Harrow of course has a long standing Bangladeshi community, but the officials were clearly impressed by the package of training facilities they saw here.

 

“We're confident Harrow has a very strong proposition as a host to visiting athletes."

 

The athletes will be using Harrow Leisure Centre, Harrow School, Hatch End swimming pool, Kodak Zoom Leisure Centre, the Bannister Sports Ground, and The Aspire Centre in Stanmore.

 

Chris Mote, the Harrow Councillor in charge of cultural services, said: "It is a tremendous coup for us to sign this in-principle agreement with the Bangladesh Olympic Association.

 

“We are convinced they will find Harrow a superb place to train and prepare and look forward to working with Bangladeshi officials in the coming months."

 

Bangladesh, which gained independence in 1971 and is the seventh biggest country in the world with a population of 150 million, only made its debut in the Olympics at Los Angeles in 1984 but they have never won a medal.

 

They sent only five athletes to the Beijing Games earlier this year, who competed in athletics, shooting and swimming.