Indonesia's SEA Games chances slim: Pramono

JAKARTA (JP): Indonesia has only a slim chance of regaining the overall champion's title at the 19th Southeast Asian (SEA) Games here next year, according to Indonesia's SEA Games training director Joko Pramono.

"Thailand has prepared for the Games half a year longer than us. No matter how hard we might try, I can say in all likelihood we will end up second to Thailand, just as we did in the 1995 SEA Games in Chiang Mai," Pramono said at the National Sports Council office yesterday.

Indonesia, overconfident of retaining the title it held since 1987, finished a distant second with 77 gold medals to overall champion and host Thailand, which scooped 157 gold medals at the Chiang Mai Games.

It was Indonesia's most dismal result ever, especially as it coincided with its 50th anniversary of independence.

Pramono added he did not mean to be pessimistic but realistic. "Unlike us, who are still concentrating on next year's SEA Games, Thailand is now focusing on the 1998 Asian Games," Pramono said.

"Thus, you see, for Thailand, next year's SEA Games will be just a tryout for their Asian Games-bound athletes," he added.

Thailand has played host to the Asian Games three times in its capital city Bangkok.

To minimize the gap, Pramono suggested national sports top brass should visit the athletes, identify problems and come up with solutions and not just listen to what the athletes' supervisors and coaches say, which may be just lip service."

Pramono supervises the nationwide, 1997 SEA Games-bound national training camp program which is scheduled to formally start this month even though some sports organizations under the council's auspices claim that they have already started their own training camps.

A training camp for coaches whose athletes are heading for next year's SEA Games is due to start today at the council's headquarters here.

During the Games, it became apparent that Indonesia was not as good as it had claimed at track and field, gymnastics, swimming and shooting -- sports which offer most gold medals. Analysts attributed the failure to the overoptimistic reports by the council's sports organizations made merely to please the council's leaders or worse, to enable them to go to Chiang Mai and earn some pocket money.

Since that experience, President Soeharto has instructed the council to send only athletes which it deems likely to bring home gold medals.

Despite Pramono's "realistic" view, however, noted sports observer Mangombar Ferdinand Siregar, believes that it is still realistic to expect Indonesia to retake the SEA Games crown.

"We still have about one year to go. Why don't we gear up in the sports at which we particularly excel, such as judo, wushu, karate, pencak silat, wrestling, rowing, badminton, archery and weight lifting?" he told The Jakarta Post yesterday.

"We still have a chance of securing the overall title if we manage not to lose any of the gold medals offered in those sports," he said. "I believe the medals earned from those sports will compensate for the losses we might suffer in track and field, gymnastics, swimming and other sports at which we are not very good." (arf)