Did or didn't Indonesia fail in Asian Games?

Indonesia only managed to get the 11th slot in the just concluded Asian Games in Hiroshima. Sports observer Sumohadi Marsis takes a closer look at this unfortunate result.

JAKARTA (JP): It seems a reasonable question to ask after the conclusion of last week's 12th Asian Games in Hiroshima: Did or didn't the Indonesian contingent fail in the biggest of Asia's sports festival?

If we use as our yardstick The Indonesian National Sports Committee's (KONI) target for the Indonesian athletes, set before their departure last month, then the answer is, without a doubt, a resounding "yes".

That target was set at a minimum of four gold medals for badminton, one for tennis and one for boxing.

As it turned out, our 139-strong contingent managed to garner only three gold medals, from badminton, and 12 silver and 11 bronze medals from various other sports.

Worse still, Indonesia's ranking declined from seventh at the Beijing Asian Games four years ago to eleventh. And for the first time in the history of the Asian Games, our position was below that of Malaysia.

Why did they fail and what can be done to correct the situation?

The most sensational upset, of course, was the defeat of Susi Susanti at the hands of Hisako Mizui in the women's badminton single semifinals.

This was a startling defeat. Mizui has never been favored to win any tournament. She has played against Susi six times and has never managed to win. In their seventh match, at Hiroshima, she scored her first victory in two straight sets: 11-4, 11-5.

What went wrong? In the wake of her defeat at Hiroshima, it was a question endlessly thrown at the 1992 Olympic gold winner and reigning queen of the 1994 Uber Cup.

It was also a question Susi herself was at a loss to answer. As media reporters kept asking, the tone of her answers to the question grew regretful: "I don't know why this happened. Do I perhaps owe somebody something? Did I hurt somebody? Have I become conceited?"

Only Susi can answer those questions, but it seems clear that non-technical factors were mostly to blame for her defeat by Mizui.

For certain, Susi did covet a victory very much. An Asian Games gold medal was the only major victory symbol that was lacking in her collection of medals. Four years ago she failed. She was determined not to fail this year because in four more years much of her punch and stamina will have been lost. It was a condition that turned every major contest into a matter of "to be or not to be" for her.

But so many successive victories in such long a time span -- 14 months -- also seemed to have had a tiring effect on her mind. Mizui, on the other hand, being the underdog, was psychologically in a more advantageous position. With nothing to lose, she was calmer and more relaxed.

And what about the defeat Susi and teammates suffered against South Korea in the women's badminton team finals.

This was altogether a different matter. Susi won, but her teammates proved unable to match her performance. It was this jagged capacity that became a problem when our women had to confront a team as solid as that of South Korea. It was a problem already obvious during the Uber Cup tournament at Senayan in May.

Tennis

The same condition existed on the tennis court. Yayuk Basuki, ranked 28th in the world, was too strong for her teammates, so the hope of winning a gold medal in the women's team events collapsed when pitched against Japan.

Yayuk failed in the individual events as well, both in the singles and in the mixed doubles. Four years ago, in Beijing, it was in this latter field that she and Suharyadi, now her husband, excelled.

It seems that the performance of Yayuk, who won her first Asian Games gold medal in Seoul, in 1986, when she was only 18, is now on the decline. All the more so, since in Hiroshima, she had to face Kimiko Date, who is ranked No. 9 in the world and who Yayuk admits is "one class above me".

Another gold medal opportunity in tennis was lost when, in the finals of the men's team events, Benny Wijaya and teammates lost against India, whose repute rests, in reality, on the strength of only one man: Leander Paes.

Our boxer Pino Bahari, who was expected to retain the title he won in Beijing in 1990, saw himself pitched against Topaev, the world champion from Kazakhstan, who was, once again, a class above.

What must we do now that we are back from Hiroshima without having met our target?

Obviously, the top representatives of all the organizations which hold the fate of our national sports ambassadors in their hands, together with KONI, must sit down and do their evaluations, make corrections and plan for the future.

As for Susi, she will be able to do the necessary mending on her own. But trouncings that stem from "class inadequacies" can only be averted by conceptualizing more extended conditioning programs and by providing more opportunities for our athletes to compete and gain experience in a variety of international sports arenas.

Concerning our athletes who failed, and no longer hold the potential of growth in their performance, we should work up the courage to leave them out of future contingents that are designed to represent Indonesia in sports events at levels such as those of the Asian Games.

Let there be no talk of failure to meet the target after the 1998 Asian Games in Bangkok.

The writer is deputy editor in chief of the Bola sports weekly tabloid.