'Indonesian swimmers on the decline'

JAKARTA (JP): Indonesia's performance in swimming events has been heading toward a decline, after enjoying a golden era in 1980s, a former top national swimmer says.

Lukman Niode, now heading the Indonesian Swimming Federation's technical committee, said yesterday that to date, an inappropriate grooming system has caused a widening gap among Indonesian swimmers.

"Developing countries must adopt methods which allow them to progress step by step but, unfortunately, we could not make it," Lukman said.

The decline has bought Indonesia down even in Southeast Asian competitions, which are dominated by Thailand.

With swimmers like Lukman in the front line, Indonesia came out as the region's strongest swimming powerhouse in the 1980s.

Lukman said that Indonesia now has only a handful of swimmers who match their Southeast Asian rivals. To make matters worse, Indonesia even failed to provide backup for its limited resources.

"It takes between five and six years to groom a new generation," Lukman said.

He insisted that swimming be given a bigger portion in the nation's school curriculum. "Without the help of schools, Indonesia will never improve its swimming performance," he said.

In a farewell ceremony yesterday, Lukman sent off to South Carolina, the United States, five swimmers being groomed for next year's SEA Games.

Sutanto brothers Felix and Albert, Audy Oktavian and a pair of women's swimmers Elsa Manora and Olga Halim will leave home tomorrow for a training session in the U.S. scheduled to end in September next year.

The five will join Richard Sambera, Wisnu Wardhana and Deny Kurniawan, who have been in the U.S. since September.

The Indonesian swimming body has also called up 13 second- string swimmers to train here for the SEA Games, but only three have turned up so far. Lukman said that most of his new recruits apparently had problems with their school commitments.

Lukman refused to talk about Indonesia's medal winning chances in the upcoming Games.

"Thailand remains the strongest team, but we are going to battle it out to turn the tide," Lukman said. (amd)