Indonesian gold diggers strike little Olympic joy in Atlanta
Indonesian gold diggers strike little Olympic joy in Atlanta
By Dwiatmanta
JAKARTA (JP): The Red and White was hoisted at the Atlanta
Olympic Games in July, but it was not enough to rescue Indonesia
from this year's barren sporting fields.
Indonesia, still licking its wounds from the Southeast Asian
Games last December, tuned up for the Olympics in a spirited
mood.
A long-term training program plus overseas outings were
proposed for athletes from 22 sports and the National Sports
Council eventually shortlisted them to just 10, six months before
the Olympics.
President Soeharto had earlier suggested the council field
only athletes with strong medal winning chances because the
Olympics were the forum for the best and not novices.
If his message was taken strictly Indonesia would have sent
only badminton players, tennis player Yayuk Basuki, the women's
archery team and boxers.
But the council refused to interpret this rigidly and stuck to
its original plan. The council even eased its standards by
allowing Southeast Asian Games winners to go. The final team
comprised 40 athletes from 11 sports, half were badminton
players.
Indonesia had a whopping Rp 5.4 billion (US$2.4 million)
budget for its Olympic project and Indonesia showed its high
optimism by pledging to win more than two gold medals.
But the scenario went wrong in the competitions. Indonesian
athletes fought tooth an nail on their way to the slaughter
house, and only badminton players survived.
Double glory
Indonesia's all-conquering shuttlers, fresh from their Thomas
Cup and Uber Cup double glory in May, failed to restore the
team's low morale. The drained badminton players kept Indonesia's
medal hopes alive when they cruised into two finals.
Men's doubles pair Rexy Mainaky and Ricky Subagja finally won
gold. Future women's singles star Mia Audina delayed her
coronation, succumbing to South Korea's experienced Bang Soo-
hyun. Olympic women's singles defending champion Susi Susanti and
the other men's pair of Denny Kantono and Antonius Irianto had to
settle for bronze medals.
This was a dismal result compared to Barcelona four years ago
-- Indonesia's best ever Olympic showing -- when the country took
two golds, two silvers and a bronze in badminton.
The Olympic dream turned out to be an illusion. The games
showed that Indonesia was overconfident and grossly
underestimated its opponents.
The sports council's chief, Wismoyo Arismunandar, admitted
later that some of the council's hopes were illusions.
National Games
After two weeks of Olympic doldrums, Indonesian athletes
turned their heads to the National Games, in which they donned
their respective provincial colors.
Amid high hopes of record breaking performances which might
serve well as a gauge for international competition, the 14th
National Games kicked off. At least 4,900 athletes poured into
Jakarta vying for 509 gold medals in 35 sports.
But the Rp 28 billion games, the richest since the event began
in 1948, turned out to be remembered for what was not
accomplished.
The Games finished on a low note by international and even
Asian standards. Forty-five national records, 20 Southeast Asian
records, 18 Asian records and six junior world records were set.
This may not seem too bad, but none of the new Asian records
came in the prestigious events -- track and field, and swimming
-- or in other popular Olympic sports, such as gymnastics,
cycling, shooting and weight lifting. All Asian records came in
power lifting, a little known discipline on the world sports
scene.
There were also complaints of bad organization, culminating in
a bizarre scandal in the women's hockey competition. Having
reached the final, Yogyakarta was told it had no right to play in
the first place because it was not registered for the
competition. The final was played later, and Yogyakarta won the
gold medal. Officially, it did not count.
The woes continued when six athletes failed drug tests. Three
shooters, a tennis player, a judoist and a hockey player were
found guilty for using stimulant.
The sports council, which refused to identify the stimulant,
stripped them of their medals, but the athletes' respective
sporting organizations took no punitive action.
SEA Games
The dismal performances of Indonesian athletes raised many
eyebrows about the country's bid to regain Southeast Asian Games
supremacy when it hosts the event next October.
Indonesia picked up 34 of the 440 gold medals on offer in
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. This was better than at the last games in
Thailand last December when only 324 golds in 28 sports were up
for grabs.
The organizing committee expects about 4,300 athletes from
Southeast Asia's 10 member countries.
Preparations are underway and the sports council has been
grooming 1,543 athletes. The first selection will be in April,
when the council will cut the number of athletes to 700.
A consortium led by President Soeharto's son Bambang
Trihatmodjo has provided Rp 35 billion in financial aid for the
training programs.
Apart from a new athletes village, the underwriting consortium
has also pledged to pay for the games' provisional Rp 35 billion
budget.
It will be the first SEA Games to be fully financed by
businesspeople. Sensing the rupiah bonanza, all committee
divisions were poised to set their respective budgets as
lucratively as possible.
As a result, the games budget swelled to Rp 143 billion after
only five of the committee's 10 divisions submitted their
projected budgets.
An angry State Minister for Youth Affairs and Sports Hayono
Isman blasted the opportunistic budget and urged a recalculation
based on the National Games.
"Only 10 teams will take part in the SEA Games and there will
be only 34 sports. Does it make sense if the Games' budget swells
to more than Rp 100 billion?" said Hayono, in his capacity as the
executive chairman of the committee's board of patrons.
Soccer
Indonesia failed to break its drought dating back to its
victory in the 1989 SEA Games in Kuala Lumpur. Indonesia capped
the year with a passable performance in the Asian Cup finals in
the United Arab Emirates early this month.
After surprisingly holding Kuwait 2-2, Indonesia turned to its
regular form and lost 2-4 to South Korea and 0-2 loss to the host
team to end at the bottom of its group. Arab Saudi came out the
champion for a record third time after beating the host 4-2 on
penalties.
Despite the poor performances soccer remained the most watched
sport. Huge crowds descended on Jakarta during the league
championship semi-finals in early October. Mastrans Bandung Raya
won the championship by beating PSM Ujungpandang 2-0 in an ill-
tempered match.
Hooliganism continued to tarnish the league. Brawls between
supporters after games were common and prompted Armed Forces
Chief Gen. Feisal Tanjung to warn of sterner security.
Tennis
Tears were the highlight as Indonesia's women's tennis team
was bundled out of the World Fed Cup elite group of 16 after its
2-3 loss at home to Switzerland in July.
At least Indonesian tennis queen Yayuk Basuki proved her
mastery by taming Swiss wonder girl Martina Hingis in the reverse
singles match. But it was not enough to lift Indonesia to a
crucial win.
This was one reason Yayuk delayed her retirement after 16
years in the game. Yayuk then booked a place on next season's
tour after reaching her third semifinal of the year at the
Advanta Championships in Pennsylvania, Philadelphia in mid
November.
The Davis Cup team almost completed the nightmare but pulled
off a minor miracle. Trailing 0-2, Andrian Raturandang and
company turned the table on host Taiwan and pulled off an
unlikely 3-2 win.
Boxing
The long wait for a unified boxing organization moved a step
closer to being realized when the Indonesian Amateur Boxing
Association and the Indonesian Boxing Commission, which oversees
professional competitions, agreed to form a team to discuss
unification.
"This plan must be realized as soon as possible for the sake
of the country's boxing development," said Hendropriyono in
November. He was the commission's chairman until recently.
Unification will probably be Hendro's legacy. He gave up his
post to become the President's secretary of Development
Operations.