Guess What? Moch. Hindarto

Moch. Hindarto, a retired city police chief who now heads the athletic development department at the National Sports Council (KONI), learned how to build up national athletes after he was cheated.

It happened four years ago, and the ones who cheated him were no less than sports officials. They apparently marked up the cost of the training preparation for the 18th Southeast Asian (SEA) Games Chiang Mai, Bangkok, in 1995.

"They really cheated us. At that time, we were newcomers and were fresh from the installment ceremony," he revealed last Saturday.

Hindarto, 60, a retired major general who headed the city police from 1993 to 1995, recalled that some sports bodies gave misleading figures on their targets for the Games so they could secure more money for training and enable unlimited officials to attend the Games.

Learning from experience, Hindarto tightened the supervision on the preparation for the 19th SEA Games in Jakarta in 1997.

For this year's Games, scheduled to take place in Brunei Darussalam in August, he has reserved enough energy to manage the training program to prepare some 500 athletes.

He has demanded coaches and managers report to him at given periods and his office conducts tests to make sure it will not be fooled by sports bodies' officials.

"We're tired of being duped," he said. (ivy)