Eighty coaches invited for a refresher course

JAKARTA (JP): Eighty coaches from 29 sports organizations are expected to join the refresher course that is to be staged by the National Sports Council (KONI) as a way of improving their skills in grooming athletes prior to the 2001 Southeast Asian (SEA) Games.

The course organizing committee chairman, Gandring Soegiantoro, told reporters on Wednesday that the coaches would be given instructions on how to plan a training program and to review it.

"We assume that the coaches are still doing their jobs even if there is no sports event. So we will only brief them about the most important matters," he said.

The course will take place in Cipayung in the Puncak area of West Java, from Jan. 29 to Feb. 1.

Gandring said that the course was being held following KONI's finding that national coaches had contributed to Indonesia's poor showing in the 1999 SEA Games in Brunei Darussalam.

Indonesia failed to repeat its success in the 1997 Games where it claimed the overall title. It only finished third after Malaysia and archrival Thailand in 1999.

"The coaches are only one of the reasons why we failed in 1999. Our coaches still have many shortcomings. KONI didn't hold this type of course after the 1997 SEA Games because we felt we had been very successful in the biennial event."

"Unfortunately, our coaches do not cultivate reading and writing habits. They are not accustomed to recording their past experiences. So they normally envision the training program in their minds, but the human mind has only a limited capacity to remember," he explained.

Gandring said that sports organizations had submitted 143 names to attend the course, but that it was up to KONI to make the final decision.

"The training program's chief of technical affairs J.E.W. Gosal knows the needs of every sports organization and which kinds of coaches they require. Pak Gosal helped us decide on the participants."

The Badminton Association of Indonesia (PBSI) and the Soccer Association of Indonesia (PSSI) have yet to submit the names of their SEA Games coaches for the course.

Gandring said that the course materials included exercises on how to arrange a training program combined with information on areas such as sports medicine, psychology and nutrition.

"If an athlete is injured during practice, the coach should realize that the injury is the result of certain factors such as the unpreparedness of the athlete to commence the training or the fact that the athlete could not cope with the training load. In this case, a coach needs a little knowledge of sports medicine and its latest techniques," he said. (ivy)