Indonesia offers to host alternative archery meet

JAKARTA (JP): The Indonesian Archery Association (Perpani) proposed a tournament in August to make up for the lack of an archery competition at the 20th Southeast Asian (SEA) Games in Bandar Seri Begawan in the same month.

Perpani's secretary-general, Udi Harsono, said the tournament, which was expected to be contested by archery federations from Southeast Asian countries, was proposed after SEA Games host Brunei decided not to include archery in the biennial event due to limited facilities.

The proposed archery tournament is scheduled to be held in Bangkok from Aug. 7 to Aug. 15 and is aimed at strengthening solidarity among participating archers. It will also serve as a warm-up for Olympic qualifying tournaments.

"Perpani will initiate a diplomatic approach with each country's representatives to ask for their support to stage this event," Udi said.

Udi said archery federations from Southeast Asian countries, including Indonesia, had asked Brunei to include archery in the Games.

He also said the federations offered their support to provide facilities and human resources if they were not available in Brunei.

"Brunei said that it was facing a lack of facilities and human resources and it could only organize certain competitions. For solidarity among Southeast Asian countries, we respect the host's capability," Udi said.

The Games, held in Brunei for the first time, will include 20 medal sports. These sports are track and field, badminton, basketball, billiards and snooker, boxing, cycling, soccer, golf, hockey, karate, pencak silat, sepak takraw, shooting, squash, swimming, table tennis, tae kwon do, tennis, rowing and canoeing, and bowling.

Perpani has been training its athletes at the Senayan archery range for Olympic qualifications starting in August. Six of the seven female archers will compete in the World Meet in Riom, France from July 22 to July 26 before Olympic qualifications begin. They will also compete in the Asian Championships in Beijing from Sept. 1 to Sept. 5.

The six athletes are Nurfitriyana Saiman Lantang, Kusuma Wardhani, Hamdiah, Dwi Purwanti, Lusia Elizabeth and Ajeng Wulan. Substitute Yuliasih will be called up if Dwi fails to show up at the training complex by Saturday.

Andi Suhendro, Perpani's deputy of athletes development, said that the association would wait for Dwi until the last minute before calling up Yuliasih. Dwi earlier declined to take part in the training because of her studies in Surabaya and her difficulty in obtaining a work permit from the Surabaya mayoralty. (ivy)