Broken Olympic dream

Broken Olympic dream

Considering the highly optimistic send-off given to the
national Olympic team last month, there is every reason to be
disappointed with the poor showing of our athletes in Atlanta.
Indonesia's best medal hopes were in badminton, but our players
only managed a single gold, one silver and two bronzes. This is a
dismal result compared to Barcelona four years ago -- Indonesia's
best ever Olympic showing -- when the country took two golds, two
silvers and a bronze in badminton.

Sports commentators have dubbed the Atlanta Olympics the
graveyard of champions. Indonesia felt the brunt of this when
its gold medal winners in Barcelona, Alan Budikusuma and Susi
Susanti, were dethroned.

It was an especially major letdown this year, when Indonesia
was expected to win both the singles titles and have a strong
chance of more gold in the men's doubles and women's doubles. At
the very least, our athletes should have returned with a handful
of silver and bronze medals.

As it turned out, only Ricky Subagdja and Rexy Mainaky, in the
men's doubles, won the gold. Mia Audina won the silver in the
women's singles, Susi Susanti returns with a bronze from the
women's singles, while Antonius and Denny Kantono took the men's
doubles bronze.

The Indonesian contingent of 41 athletes included a formidable
lineup of 20 badminton players, the envy of any team manager.
With names like Susi Susanti and Mia Audina in the women's
singles, Joko Suprianto, Alan Budikusuma and Hariyanto Arbi in
the men's singles, and Ricky Subagja and Rexy Mainaky in the
men's doubles, it was the Indonesian "dream team". The confidence
was further buoyed by the fresh Thomas Cup and Uber Cup victories
in Hong Kong last May, when our shuttlers proved that they could
beat anyone anywhere.

Our Olympic dream turned out to be an illusion. This week's
events show that we were overconfident and that we grossly
underestimated our opponents. In the badminton tournament, the
real matches began in the third round. One by one our medal hopes
began to fade, mostly ousted by the same opponents whom they had
beaten in Hong Kong just two months ago. The dream team unraveled
and by the time the finals were played, Indonesia only had Mia
Audina and Ricky and Rexy to count on.

Ricky and Rexy deserve every praise for their fighting spirit
and for saving what was left of the nation's wounded pride. Mia
must also be commended for putting up a brave fight against a
more experienced opponent in the final. At 16 years old, Mia will
surely represent Indonesia again, and her time will probably come
in Sydney in 2000 and in subsequent Olympics.

While it is not our intention to look for scapegoats for the
dismal performance of Indonesia's badminton players, those
responsible for the preparations must now answer some questions.
Atlanta showed that our badminton players were not thoroughly
prepared, physically or mentally, especially compared to their
opponents from China, South Korea, Denmark and Malaysia.

We recall the time when our athletes returned home victorious
with the Thomas Cup and Uber Cup in May. They were required to
take part in motorcades in various cities, including Jakarta, to
show their trophies to the people. And then there were the
celebrations and receptions they had to attend. All this while,
their opponents were training hard for Atlanta.

We sincerely hope that we have learned from our failure in
Atlanta. We should now set our sights on the future, not just on
the Southeast Asian Games that will be held in Jakarta next year,
or the Asian Games in 1998, but also on the Sydney Olympics in
2000. This hope applies to badminton and to other sports as well.

With better preparations, hopefully Indonesian athletes could
further our dream of becoming one of the world's major sporting
nations at the next Olympic games.