Arif adds to host team lead in Indonesia Open

Musthofid, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Indonesian karate hopeful Arif Taufan Syamsudin improved his Asian Games hopes with a win at the Indonesia Open as the host team continued its medal quest domination on Wednesday.

Arif, who is a member of the Buffalo team, overcame Dean Bowen of Australia 14-6 in the final of the 60kg men's kumite at the Bung Karno Indoor Tennis Hall to contribute one of four golds that Indonesia reaped on the penultimate day of the competition.

Other countries joining the winners list were Malaysia with two golds, Australia with two and Saudi Arabia with one.

The win should provide Arif with optimism ahead of the 2002 Asian Games, which will be held in South Korea in October. However, he said that he would need to compete in a few more internationals to further test his skills.

"The Open is very useful for me in gauging my skills. Although I won, I found out I still have weaknesses," Arif told a press conference.

Coach Willem Mantiri said that Arif, and his other five teammates currently participating in a training camp, would have overseas tryouts in Turkey and Australia before their departure to Korea.

"Arif has already equipped himself with an explosive array of weapons but he has yet to be able to bring his maneuvers to such a stage that they become punishing," he said.

The other three Indonesian gold medalists were Telly M., and Tiger team members Aswan Ali and Flenty Enoch.

Telly beat Adora Aquino of the Philippines 4-1 in the final of 48kg women's kumite. Flenti and Aswan triumphed in the individual kata event, the former outplaying Yanisa T. of Thailand 5-0 and the latter beating fellow Indonesian Ellias Tande of the Buffalo team 5-0.

Indonesia could have added more golds in the other four events, but Anna Juwita in the 53kg women's kumite, Wawang Nurrasyid in the 55kg men's kumite, Yan Pieter in the 70kg men's kumite and Hasan Basri in the 65kg men's kumite lost their final contests.

Indonesia led the standings with seven golds, followed by Malaysia with three golds.

The other two golds for Malaysia on the day were contributed by Sri Rajarajeswari and R. Puvaneswara.

Australia won its two golds courtesy of Todd Usher and Hani Zahra, while Modhash Shamrani was the only gold winner for Saudi Arabia.