IA athletes told to get their act together
Moch. N. Kurniawan, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
The National Sports Council (KONI) is warning athletes in its specialized program for the 2006 Asian Games to start performing or face the consequences.
Half of the 12 sports in the Indonesia Awakens (IA) program are considered behind the goal of offering solid medal opportunities, KONI said on Wednesday during an evaluation of the program, which began in April 2004.
The athletes' testing ground will be the 2005 Southeast Asian (SEA) Games in Manila in November.
The sports considered lagging behind are athletics, weightlifting, karate, shooting, archery and tennis.
Badminton, cycling, chess, windsurfing, tae kwon do and beach volleyball are on target in their goals.
"The SEA Games will be a critical point for the IA athletes to show their true qualities," KONI head of development affairs Djoko Pramono said.
For example, he added, tennis had a total of eight athletes in the IA program, but if only national number one Angelique "Angie" Widjaja and Wynne Prakusya performed to expectations in the SEA Games, the other players could be removed.
"This will be applied to other sports as well," he said.
Weightlifting is facing particular problems, with the refusal of a coach to work and injuries among the athletes.
In athletics, 110-meter hurdle runner Eddy Zakaria ran 14.34 seconds in the Islamic Solidarity Games in April, far below his best time of 14.11.
Karate failed to grab medals in the Islamic Solidarity Games but gained three bronzes in an international tournament in Chinese Taipei.
In shooting, athletes only began the second phase of their training program last October.
As for archery, the athletes took only one bronze and one silver in the Asian Championship in February.
Djoko said he was satisfied with the progress in cycling, with Santia Tri Kusuma recruited by a team in the Netherlands to participate in 22 races in the next five months.
"She won the third stage in the Australia tour, which is enough to take her to Europe," he said.