Indonesia shows its skills at last in SEA Games

Sat, 16 Dec 1995

By Dwiatmanta

CHIANG MAI, Thailand (JP): Indonesian athletes did their country proud yesterday as they pounded their way to gold medals in the Southeast Asian Games.

But their charges came far too late.

Thailand's haul of gold medals surpassed the 100 mark to secure the overall championship title, an honor that Indonesia has jealously guarded for the past decade.

But yesterday, for once, Indonesia showed its teeth in the competition and challenged the host country's sports supremacy. Indonesia's 14 gold medals yesterday brought its tally to 59, while Thailand won 17 more to bring its total to 113.

Indonesian archers found their mark to claim both the men's and women's team events, after a disappointing performance in the individual numbers earlier.

Nurfitriayana Lantang, the sole remnant of the 1988 Olympic silver medalist team, along with Dahliana and Hamdiah, edged Malaysia aside to claim the gold. The Indonesian men's trio of Indra Setiawan, Tito Rembrand and Safruddin just beat Thailand to the mark.

Indonesian paddlers swept all four golds in traditional rowing, winning the men's and women's 400 meters (10 paddlers), the women's 600m (20 paddlers) and the men's 400m (20 paddlers).

In athletics, Sugeng Jatmiko won the triple jump with a leap of 15.92m to claim the gold, while Rumini clinched the heptathlon gold with 5,044 points.

It was an overall disappointment for Indonesia in the track and field as it managed only seven golds against Thailand's 21 and Malaysia's eight.

Weightlifter Sunaryo scored a total of 330 kilograms in the 99-kg category to give Indonesia another gold.

Indra Halim won the middle class category and Pino Indra in featherweight to gain two more tae kwon do golds.

It was almost total disaster on the tennis court, except for Yayuk Basuki and Romana Tedjakusuma, who beat Thailand's Tamarine Thanasugarn and Suwimol Duangchan 6-2 6-2 to win the women's double gold medal.

Indonesia failed even to secure places in the finals in three other numbers that it had expected to win: Suwandi, the defending champion in the men's singles title, Romana and Mimma Chenovita in the women's singles, and Suwandi/Eddy Kusdaryanto in the men's doubles, were all eliminated from competition. Yayuk and Edy Sulistyo provided one last hope in tennis, qualifying for today's mixed doubles' final.

In table tennis, Rossy Pratiwi secured her final berth after beating Thailand's Anisara 15-21 21-10 21-11 21-10 and Hadiyudo reached the men's final, beating Chaitat of Thailand 21-18, 21- 16, 21-14. The men's double final today will be an all-Indonesian affair between Anton Suseno/Hadiyudo and Al Arkam/Deddy da Costa.

With only two more days of competition, Indonesians are engaging in some introspection as to what went wrong with the performance of their athletes, having come here with high expectations of winning at least 130 golds and the title.

It is generally admitted now that Indonesia grossly underestimated its opponents. Concern is beginning to shift already to the prospects for the next Games, which will be hosted by Indonesia in 1997.

"We've got to match what they (the other countries) have achieved, if we don't want to lose the 19th Games in Jakarta. We have to prepare well," said Muhammad Hindarto, one of the officials leading the Indonesian delegation here.

Breaking with tradition, the Games will wind up on Sunday with the 12 boxing finals, in which the Thais excel, rather than with soccer. Indonesia is fielding four finalists: welterweight Robert Aswin Cabui, light middleweight Henrik Simangunson, middleweight Pino Jafnta Udyanta and light heavyweight Albert Papilaya.