Catherine Surya surges to fifth gold at Games

Catherine Surya surges to fifth gold at Games

JAKARTA (JP): Catherine Surya of West Java completed her
glorious return to the National Games as the six-day swimming
program came to a close yesterday.

A stylish Catherine, who served a 15-month ban from
competition for use of a banned drug in the 1993 Games, splashed
to victory in the women's 100-meter freestyle, giving her a fifth
gold and breaking the national record.

The 16-year-old swimmer from Cirebon clocked 59.00 seconds to
shave 19 hundredths of a second off the previous record set by
Meitri Widya Pangestika, who finished third behind Catherine and
Elsa Manora Nasution of Jambi in 59.99.

It was Catherine's second national record-breaking time,
taking the tally of new national records set at the Games to
eight. Fourteen National Games records also fell in the pool.

Catherine also set three new Games records to add spice to her
commendable showing. She scooped eight golds and smashed five
national records in her impressive-turned-disgraced PON debut
three years ago. This year's performance proved enough for
organizers to name her best female swimmer of the Games.

She edged out her toughest rival and crowd favorite Elsa, who
clinched her sixth gold after winning the 200m backstroke in a
new National Games record of 2:21.88 yesterday.

Jakarta's Albert Sutanto was named the best male swimmer for
his five golds, a national record and four National Games
records. He scored his last win in the 400m freestyle yesterday
by cutting 2.82 seconds off his own National Games record of
4:08.70.

Albert's twin brother, Felix, topped the medal tally with
seven golds, but failed to break any records. His final gold came
yesterday in the 200m individual relay.

Indonesia' sole Olympian, Richard Sam Bera, added one more
gold to Jakarta's tally. He won the 50m freestyle, his favorite
event, in 23.46 seconds, half a second faster than the old mark
set by teammate Wisnu Wardhana.

National coach Lisa Siregar was pleased with the performances
in the pool at this year's PON. "The number of new national
records is few, but only because the swimmers are training to
reach their peak performances at next year's Southeast Asian
Games," Lisa said.

"It's better not take them to limit this time and then let
them run out of steam the SEA Games," she added.

Lisa, who is also coaching the Jakarta swimming team, said the
Indonesian Swimming Association plans to send its 10 best
athletes, five men and five women, to the United States for an
intensive long-term training program prior to the SEA Games.

Richard, Wisnu, the Sutanto twin, Audi Oktavian from Central
Java, Elsa, Meitri, Olga Halim and Dwi Pudjiastuti Akub have been
listed for the American stint. Catherine will continue training
in Australia.

Another national coach, Radja Nasution from Jambi, countered
Lisa's argument, saying overseas training was not a necessity.

"We have many good coaches here. An overseas stint will only
be effective if foreign coaches are more skilled than ours. We
have to be aware of their ability," Nasution said.

Agustina of South Kalimantan powered her way to four Asian
record breaking lifts that earned her the gold medal in the
women's 67.5kg division power lifting competition yesterday.

The muscle woman combined a total heave of 520kgs to surpass
the Asian mark by 12.5kgs. Her three best efforts in squat, bench
press and dead-lift surpassed Asian records by half a kilogram,
4.5kgs and 7.5kgs respectively.

Two more Asian records fell in the 82.5kg category won by
Lourencia of West Kalimantan. She squatted 227.5kgs and totaled
525kgs to outshine Asian marks of 205kgs in squat and 512.5kgs in
total.

Nyo My Ching of West Sumatra was the last to eclipse an Asian
record when she squatted 220kgs, surpassing Taiwanese Ku Shin
Hsien's mark of 210kgs in the 90kg class.

Lampung added its power lifting gold through its men's 82.5kg
ace Sahroni who totaled 797.5kgs. Jambi shared the glory with the
gold in the men's 90kg competition from Ifyandi who combined a
total lift of 747.5kgs.

In bridge, Jakarta and North Sulawesi took a gold each in the
open pairs competition. North Sulawesi lived up to its status as
the country's bridge powerhouse when Hengky Lasut and Eddy
Manoppo took the men's team gold. The women's division was won by
Jakarta's Joice and Lusye Boyoh. (yan)

Medal tally

G S B
Jakarta 80 51 51
West Java 43 48 48
East Java 33 43 41
Central Java 17 27 39
Lampung 14 16 21
Jambi 12 8 7
South Kalimantan 9 7 6
Irian Jaya 8 7 10
East Kalimantan 8 5 14
South Sulawesi 7 12 14
North Sulawesi 6 11 15
Central Kalimantan 6 8 5
North Sumatra 6 6 10
West Kalimantan 6 4 3
South Sumatra 5 3 5
Southeast Sulawesi 5 2 4
Yogyakarta 4 8 11
Maluku 3 2 8
Riau 3 2 7
West Sumatra 2 5 9
Bali 2 4 8
East Nusa Tenggara 2 1 1
Bengkulu 1 2 5
West Nusa Tenggara 1 0 1
Central Sulawesi 0 1 1
East Timor 0 0 7
Aceh 0 0 2