Coke to honor badminton queen

Coke to honor badminton queen

JAKARTA (JP): The already-popular world badminton queen Susi Susanti is set to receive another boost: her face is to be printed on Coca-cola cans, along with the faces of other top Indonesian athletes, such as Seoul Olympics silver medalist archer Nurfitriana Lantang and one of Asia's fastest sprinters, Mardi Lestari.

The new Coca-cola cans are part of the soft drink company's program to raise funds to help sports development in Indonesia. The company will donate Rp 20 for each of the 125 million new cans sold. As such, the sales are expected to generate Rp 250 million (US$112,714), considerably more money than the Rp 12.5 million reported, erroneously, in this newspaper yesterday.

Mike Bascle, the president of Coca-cola South Pacific, said that of that amount, 50 percent would go to the athletes whose faces appear on the cans, 40 percent would go to the sports organizations to which the athletes belong and 10 percent would go to the National Sports Council (KONI). (arf)