Indonesian sports at a major crossroads

Budi A. Sanusi, Contributor, Jakarta

If the performance of the Indonesian athletes at the Busan Asian Games is anything to go by, the future of the national sports is very bleak indeed.

With a meager collection of four gold, seven silver, and 12 bronze medals, Indonesia ended up in the 14th spot far below the three Asian powerhouses: China, South Korea and Japan. Worse still, Indonesia even finished below three fellow ASEAN neighbors: Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore.

An alarm bell should be sounded but not to press the panic button - at least not yet.

The Busan Asiad has given a valuable lesson to Indonesia that unless prompt and effective efforts are carried out, the country will find itself further lagging behind the Asian giants. However there is still light at the end of the tunnel - there is still much room for improvement.

No need to find scapegoats as all, including the officials and the athletes, are to be blamed for the Asiad debacle.

The officials, in the first place, should be blamed for failing to motivate their charges into fighting tooth and nail to deliver the goods - while the athletes seemed to have lost their motivation into giving their best.

In the case of the athletes, their lack of motivation could stem from the classic reason: they just do not know what kind of future will hold for them once they are no longer around in the arena.

Incentives and bonuses alone are less effective as it cannot financially support their life.

What they need is a kind of pension given to the athletes who have done the nation proud by winning Asian Games or Olympic gold medals.

The South Korean government for instance, gives its Olympic gold medalists US$5,000 per month for life.

It might be too naive to conclude that such incentives could help catapult the athletes placing themselves among Asia's best, but at least it might stimulate their performance.

But let's face reality: Indonesian athletes cannot rub shoulders with their Chinese, Korean or Japanese counterparts in the sports that require mere physical strength and height due to the general natural characteristics of our athletes' posture.

Therefore the national sports governing body (KONI) should concentrate on grooming athletes for the sports in which physical power and height are not so important: badminton, table tennis, archery, gymnastics to mention a few.

In badminton we are already an established country if not number one in the world. In archery, Indonesia once notched a niche by winning a silver medal in the 1988 Seoul Olympics. But since then Indonesian archers have never again recorded a resounding performance on the world scene.

The national archery association has failed to find the likes of women archers Kusumawardani, Nurfitriana and Lilis Handayani - the Olympic silver medal winning trio.

In fact the performance of our archers has continued to deteriorate. This is an ample proof that something has gone wrong with the regeneration process.

And one thing to remember that a sports association is not a profit-making entity, but there is a growing tendency here that many businessmen are jockeying for top positions in national sports association.

Why? Because by holding such top positions it will directly or indirectly help them forge their relationship with top government officials. This, in turn, could greatly assist them to obtain various kinds of administrative facilities for the sake of their enterprises.

But let's get back to the core of the problem: the total letdown of Indonesia at the Busan Asian Games should serve as an eye opener to KONI to put its house in order.

The body is the only party responsible for the dismal showing of our athletes. But so far it has failed to pinpoint the reasons for the failure. This only indicates that the body does not have a well-coordinated and comprehensive system or an instrument that can quickly review and analyze any weak and strong points within its management.

I, for one, want to see a full-fledged or a portfolio Ministry of Sports revived as in the 1960s during the Sukarno administration when the country's first president appointed Maladi as the Sports Minister.

After the Maladi era no minister of sports with full authority has ever been appointed in the Cabinet. True there were five state/junior ministers in charge of sports and youth affairs, but their roles were practically ceremonial as they were overshadowed by KONI.

Once a Ministry of Sports is revived, it and KONI should complement each other and join forces for the sake of national sports. Both must have a respective clear-cut task in order to avoid being overlapped. The former works on policy and administrative matters, while the latter concentrates on technical details.

For too long KONI has been too dominant at the helm of national sports to the point of being "a dictator" in the absence of Ministry of Sports.

Hopefully the revival of the sports ministry could well serve its purpose, and Pak Wismoyo Arismunandar, with all due respect, should realize that KONI cannot work alone but needs an equally strong partner to "compete" with and dialog with.