Indonesia well prepared for World Archery C'ship

Indonesia well prepared for World Archery C'ship

JAKARTA (JP): D.M. Lovo, the vice president of the world archery body, FITA, expressed satisfaction yesterday at Indonesia's preparations for hosting the World Archery Championships.

The 38th World Outdoor Target Archery Championships are scheduled to take place in Jakarta from Aug. 1 to Aug. 6.

"I am very pleased with the preparations," said Lovo with a smile. Lovo inspected Jakarta's Senayan archery field, locally called the ABC field, on Sunday.

Praising the organizing committee, he said, "I feel comfortable that things are going well with the preparations."

Lovo said he believed the organizer, the Indonesian Archery Association (Perpani), will not need any financial assistance from FITA. Earlier, Perpani has estimated it would need about Rp 2 billion (US$907,852) to hold the event and planned to secure the fund through sponsorship.

"I think you are in a good shape financially," Lovo said. He added he was informed that the business community was supportive of the organizer.

The FITA executive said he expected that around 70 countries will take part in the championships which will serve as a qualifying round for the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games. Seventy-five percent of the world's Olympic archers will be chosen at the Jakarta world championships.

Unlike in the previous championships, each participating country will be allowed to field 16 contestants instead of eight this year.

However, Lovo hinted that the organizer might still need some technical assistance from FITA. The tournament will be the first world championships ever to feature the compound event in addition to the traditional, manual recurving event.

In the compound event, archers are mechanically assisted in terms of velocity. This enables the arrow to move twice as fast and to reach speeds of up to 300 feet per second.

Compound archery was developed 25 years ago. The decision to include it in the world championships was made at the last FITA congress in Ankara, Turkey, in 1993. (arf)