Hockey wouldn't win at SEA Games: Hindarto
Hockey wouldn't win at SEA Games: Hindarto
JAKARTA (JP): The training director of the National Sports Council (KONI) Mochammad Hindarto yesterday defended the council's decision not to send the national hockey team to the upcoming Southeast Asian Games.
"The team will not be able to win the gold medal," Hindarto insisted. He saw no reason to allow Indonesia's hockey players to compete in the Dec. 9 to 17 Games in Chiang Mai. "They would not be able to match their Malaysian and Singaporean counterparts, anyway," he rationalized.
The council, however, insists on sending other teams, like taekwondo and squash, which offer Indonesia only a slight chance at gold.
"We can still expect our taekwondo and squash teams to make a breakthrough, but not the hockey team," Hindarto said.
Hindarto said he believed the taekwondo athletes would be able to catch up with their opponents at the SEA Games if their centralized training program is extended from six to eight months.
As for the squash players, Hindarto said, he believed they would also manage to improve significantly if they are sent to Pakistan, the world's squash powerhouse, for intensive training.
The chief of the Indonesian Hockey Association Raj Kumar Singh told The Jakarta Post that the results of the SEA Games would tell whether taekwondo and squash, which the sport council is counting on, would make the grade.
"If not, will he (Hindarto) be sportsmanlike enough to resign from his chair?" Singh asked.
Singh acknowledged that in the last SEA Games in Singapore two years ago, his hockey team failed to obtain even the bronze medal although it had previously undergone a month-long intensive stint in Pakistan, one of the world's best hockey countries.
The hockey association was the only sport organization under KONI which didn't support the candidacy of the incumbent chairman Wismoyo Arismunandar last January.
Singh said he believed his team would have a chance of at least winning the silver medal if it was allowed to go to the SEA Games.
"I was told host Thailand will hold the hockey matches on a grass field, on which our team has been training and is therefore familiar with," he said. (arf)