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.