Athletes' field test results disappoint KONI

JAKARTA (JP): The National Sports Council (KONI) is disappointed with the results of physical fitness tests conducted by six of the sports bodies preparing its athletes for the 20th Southeast Asian (SEA) Games in Brunei Darussalam in August.

Moch. Hindarto, KONI's official in charge of athlete development, urged officials from the six sports bodies to use the results of the tests to review their training programs in order to increase their athletes performances in the next three months.

"We are not looking for a scapegoat. We will consult with our experts tomorrow (Friday) about how to boost athletes performances to enable them to win medals at the Games. We are responsible for making sure they win medals," he said after chairing a meeting with the six sports organizations on Thursday.

The six sports bodies which conducted the tests, supervised by KONI's sports science commission, are basketball, tenpin bowling, boxing, diving, golf and karate.

Imron ZS, head of KONI's training center and the training director for the SEA Games, said two of the basketball players showed excellent fitness, two others were considered poor and the rest of the players had fair results. All of the female tenpin bowlers received bad marks in the tests.

He also said all the boxers scored high in the test. The male divers did very well while the female divers scored good results. The male golfers earned good marks in the test while the female golfers had fair results.

Imron added female karatekas got bad marks while male karatekas had good results.

He blamed the poor results on the training programs.

"Sports organizations must train their athletes before and after they compete in tournaments. The test results indicate we always start from zero when we face multievent tournaments like the SEA Games," he said.

"If you had been preparing the athletes since last December, they wouldn't get poor results. But we can't just blame the athletes, let's also look at ourselves," Imron, who accompanied Hindarto to the meeting, said.

Hindarto called on sports bodies to be more serious in training their athletes, saying the bodies should put their athletes on a continual training program to keep prepared for tournaments. He also urged the bodies to be honest in informing KONI of their training processes.

He said KONI would conduct another fitness test in six weeks to reevaluate the athletes condition.

"We also want to check whether the sports bodies told us the truth about their athletes conditions," he said.

Hindarto said KONI would arrange a special training program to enable athletes to train themselves when they are not competing in tournaments.

"Athletes failed to get good marks on the test because they never exercise. They are enjoying their lives too much. After the SEA Games, we will socialize the new training program."

"By applying this training program, we hope athletes won't be too dependent on their coaches. It also will help them form a champions mentality," he said.

Indonesia will send 448 athletes from 20 sports to the SEA Games from Aug. 7 to Aug. 12. The Games, which will be hosted by Brunei for the first time, will offer 235 gold medals in 21 sports. (ivy)