Indonesia's SEA Games chances slim: Pramono

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)