Did or didn't Indonesia fail in Asian Games?

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.