Cycling body to start training next month

Novan Iman Santosa, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

In a bid to meet the set target of winning two cycling gold medals at the Asian Games next year, the Indonesian Cycling Association (ISSI) will begin centralized training for its athletes in November, two months ahead of the official schedule set by the National Sports Council (KONI).

"We have to start the training center earlier as we hope to boost both the endurance and strength of our cyclists and help them reach their best," ISSI vice secretary-general Sofian Ruzian told reporters on Wednesday.

"Based on our recent achievements, we have a great chance of winning two gold medals in the women's team pursuit and men's downhill. We are also expecting silver and bronze medals in several sprint events," he added.

Clocking 3:59, the Indonesian women's team pursuit finished second in the 2001 Asian Cycling Championships behind host Chinese Taipei who clocked 3:58.

Sugianto Setiawan will be Indonesia's best bet in the men's downhill, thanks to his victory in the 2001 Asian Mountain Bike Championships in Thailand.

KONI has summoned officials from 20 sports organizations to discuss the preparations for the Asian Games. Apart from the ISSI, the sports bodies are archery, badminton, beach volleyball, pool, bodybuilding, boxing, canoeing, gymnastics, judo, karate, rowing, sailing, shooting, swimming, tae kwon do, tennis, track and field, weightlifting and wushu.

Separately, coach Endang Subagyo said that training would be divided into four phases.

"We will start training in the center with the basic training phase lasting four months. The goal here is to restore the cyclists' physical fitness," he said.

"We will then improve the cyclists' endurance and strength for about three months. During these two phases, the cyclists will take part in long-distance tournaments which require endurance and strength."

The third one is the specific phase, also covering three months, in which cyclists will be involved more in participating in tournaments, especially the sprint cyclists.

"In the fourth phase, all cyclists will take part in more tournaments until eight weeks before the Asian Games. During the eight-week cooling down period, we will just give them high intensity training as the final preparation," said Endang.

Sofian, however, warned that the ISSI would set a time limit for all cyclists before allowing them to compete in the Asiad.

Cyclists contributed 11 gold medals for the national team at the Kuala Lumpur 2001 Southeast Asian (SEA) Games last month.