Administrative failure led to women's hockey row

JAKARTA (JP): Members of 14th National Games organizing committee admitted yesterday that administrative errors had caused the disqualification of women's hockey as a medal event, and called for thorough deliberation to solve the issue.

The executive chairman, Museno, said the committee staff in charge of the hockey competition had not followed proper administrative procedures by allowing an unregistered team to play.

"The problem is why they failed to anticipate this," Museno told reporters yesterday. "There was a mistake, but let's find a solution with a cool head."

Chairman of competition affairs Mohammad Hindarto announced Tuesday that the committee had eliminated women's hockey from the medal events because it featured less than five teams, which was a competition requirement. The announcement followed the disqualification of the Yogyakarta team, which illegally entered the Games -- and reached the final.

The Yogyakarta sports organization had refused to let its women's hockey team compete in the Games, but Yogyakarta's hockey officials sent the team regardless and paid the team's competition expenses.

Chairman of the Indonesian Hockey Association, Rajkumar Singh, told Antara Tuesday that the Games committee knew that the Yogyakarta women's team would compete because it had issued ID cards to the team members.

But Museno said the ID cards were used to identify the athletes. "The cards do not serve as approval of athletes' participation," Museno said. "Approval to compete is issued by each provincial sports body."

Commenting on Singh's threat to take the women's hockey disqualification to the Jakarta administrative court, Museno said that it was up to Singh.

"It doesn't matter if he wants to sue us. But I think we better solve it among ourselves," Museno said.

Laboratory

Also yesterday, the director of the doping control laboratory, Wismiarti, said that 900 urine samples of athletes had been tested so far.

Wismiarti said the number was expected to rise to 1,000 by the end of the quadrennial event tomorrow.

"So far so good. None of the samples have shown contents of banned drugs," she said. The official announcement, however, will be given by the committee after the Games.

Wismiarti said that laboratory staff worked 24 hours a day on testing, no matter how many urine samples they examined.

"If there are only 10 samples, we can finish our work in one day," she said. "But if we have problems, it will take us at least two days to finish the tests."

Fourteen experts, including four Australians, are conducting the tests.

Ery Chajadipura, vice chairman of the anti-doping commission, said that Jakarta's dreadful traffic jams often delayed the delivery of samples from venues to the laboratory.

The laboratory was built in cooperation with the Sydney-based Australian Sports Drug Testing Laboratory in preparation for the 19th Southeast Asian Games next year in Jakarta.

The laboratory in Rawa Kerbo, East Jakarta, enables Indonesia to conduct its own dope tests. Indonesia used to send samples to China or Australia, two of the three laboratories in the Asia Pacific region which are sanctioned by the International Olympic Committee.

Another Games medical official, Aslan Lasman, said yesterday that 12 athletes had been sent to hospital during the event, mostly because of bone injuries. Four of them have been released from hospital.

"Most of them are athletes in sports which allow full body contact, including karate, judo and pencak silat," Aslan said.

By yesterday, minor medical treatment had been administered to 52 athletes.

The Games organizing committee is deploying 125 doctors and 215 medical officials who are posted in all venues and in the athletes' dormitories. (yan/amd)