Asiad decision upsets archery, bowling bodies
Asiad decision upsets archery, bowling bodies
JAKARTA (JP): The Indonesian Archery Association and the
Indonesian Bowling Association expressed disappointment yesterday
at the National Sports Council's decision not to choose their
sports to represent the country at the 13th Asian Games in
Bangkok next December.
The archery association's secretary-general, Edo Rahantoknam,
said the council should have given a reason why his
organization's proposal was rejected.
"We haven't received any letter from the council saying that
our proposal was rejected. We didn't know on what basis the
council chose the 22 sports. They probably just considered our
bad performance recently," he said.
The council announced Monday that it had chosen 22 sports in
which Indonesia would compete at the Asiad. They are track and
field, badminton, boxing, canoeing, cycling, equestrian, fencing,
soccer, gymnastics, judo, karate, rowing, sepak takraw, shooting,
swimming, tae kwon do, tennis, volleyball, weight lifting,
wrestling, wushu and yachting.
The sports organizations will have to stage and finance their
own, decentralized, training for about 10 months before the
council takes over three months prior to the start of the Games.
Indonesian archers have performed poorly since reaching their
peak at the 1988 Olympics in Seoul the women's trio of
Nurfitriyana, Lilies Handayani and Kusumawardhani won the silver
after beating the U.S. team in a playoff.
Indonesia only won one gold and three silvers in the 19th SEA
Games here last October. The result was worse than the 1995 Games
where national archers won two golds, one silver and two bronzes.
Indonesia made a clean sweep of all four golds in the 1993
Games in Singapore.
Edo said the association did not mention its target for the
Asiad due to the limited skills of its young archers.
"They are being prepared for the association's eight-year
training program. We can't push the young archers and expect them
to win medals at the event unless we have a miracle," he said.
Edo said the council's rejection would likely influence the
association's plan to contract South Korean Lee Jae-hyung, who is
reputed to be the second best coach in his country, for at least
one year.
"We plan to stage a centralized training, financed by the
association, under Lee's supervision as preparation for the
Asiad. But with the rejection, it seems the association has to
change the plan," he said.
The association has planned to groom 10 male and 10 female
archers for the Asiad.
Edo declined to speculate whether he thought the archers would
still have a chance to compete in the Asiad, saying that the
association will meet tomorrow to discuss its plan for next year.
The council said that if sports which were not chosen could
show their athletes' form was good enough during the 10-month
period, the council would reconsider their participation in the
quadrennial event.
Bowling
The bowling association's secretary-general, Abdul Rauf, said
that he was disappointed with the decision but that the
association would continue with its training program.
"If we show good form during the 10-month period, I believe
the council will consider our bowlers to compete at the event,"
he said.
"Our target at the Asiad was to win the silver as we did in
the 1994 Games in Hiroshima," he added.
The association will select nine male and nine female bowlers
by the end of this month for its long-term training program for
the Asiad.
"Of the 18 athletes, about 70 percent of them are less than 35
years old," Abdul said.
Twelve bowlers, six male and six female, will be selected to
compete in the Asian Championships in Taipei in July as a warmup
for the Asiad.
Abdul said the association would finance the training and
would also likely cooperate with the Cosmic bowling center in
Pluit to provide free-of-charge practice facilities.
He also said the association would send Gatot Ario Nugroho and
Lily Suhaimi to compete at the Brunswick Asia Bowling
Championship in Guangzhou, China, from Dec. 9 to Dec. 12. (yan)