Indonesia secures 18 Olympic slots: KONI

Zakki Hakim, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Indonesia has secured 18 slots in the Athens Olympic Games in August -- but still far from its targeted 50, said a national sports official.

Chef-de-mission Indra Kartasasmita, who is also in charge of planning and budgeting affairs at the National Sports Council (KONI), said on Wednesday that Indonesia had snapped up slots in seven sports: archery (2), swimming (3), weightlifting (7), windsurfing (1), tae kwon do (2), tennis (1) and track and field (2).

The tennis and track-and-field slots were secured through the International Olympics Committee (IOC) wild cards.

Oka Sulaksana is Indonesia's windsurfer at the Olympics, while tae kwon do teams will be represented by Juana Wangsa Putri and Satrio Rahardani, archery by Rina Dewi Puspita Sari and Lockoneko. Donny Utomo, Andi Wibowo and Albert Sutanto will represent the country in swimming.

The weightlifting, tennis and track and field athletes are as yet undecided.

Indra said that KONI would aim for more berths in other events, including cycling, badminton, rowing, judo, boxing, beach volleyball and diving.

"We will find out about our badminton qualifiers in April," he said.

Badminton is the only sport that has given Indonesia its first gold medals at the Olympic level, thanks to the accomplished feats of the now-married star couple Susi Susanti and Alan Budi Kusuma in the 1992 Barcelona Olympics.

Indra said KONI is planning to channel Rp 25.7 billion (US$3.023 million) to finance training camps and participation in the world's biggest multi-event sporting contest.

The training camp will be carried out in two phases: In the first phase, from March to June, sports organizations will manage the training of their own athletes', while KONI will take over the task in the second phase from July to August.