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