Indonesia's track and field team sets modest goals for SEA Games

Musthofid, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The Indonesian track and field team will take 35 athletes to the Southeast Asian (SEA) Games, with the modest goal of securing two gold medals.

"We have submitted forty names to the organizing committee. But the number will be whittled down to 35," Tigor Tanjung, the secretary-general of the Indonesian Athletics Association (PASI), said when contacted by The Jakarta Post here on Thursday.

From the list distributed by PASI, as many as 54 athletes are working out at their training camps in Jakarta and Pengalengan, West Java. But the number was reduced to 40 after the three-day qualifying tournament here from Oct. 19 to Oct. 22, which also coincided with the national junior championships.

The SEA Games, a multi-event sporting showcase contested among the ten countries of the Southeast Asia region, will be hosted by Vietnam in December.

"The criteria is already set up. Only athletes with medal prospects will be going. For young members, their goal is to make the final of their respective events," Tigor said.

Tigor said that ten from the list of 40 are vying for the final five spots on the team.

Their performance during workouts will be closely monitored and eventually five of them will be dropped after final evaluations in mid-November.

The track and field competition traditionally provide the bulk of gold medals.

However, the Indonesian team looks resigned two winning just two gold, given the relative superiority at present of other athletes in the region.

"We will be heading to Vietnam, certainly as underdogs. We are supposed to be 'PDI-Struggle," he said, taking an example from the country's largest political party to describe how difficult their bid would be in Vietnam.

"In track and field, the strengths and weaknesses can be clearly mapped out because we have the data on our athletes and opponents as well," he said.

Indonesia's best medal prospects, he said, were the women's and men's pole vaulters Ni Putu Desy Margawati and Nunung Jayadi.

Desy was one of the squad's three gold medalists in 2001 SEA Games in Kuala Lumpur, where 46 golds medals were on offer. Twenty-two of those went to Thailand. Malaysia and the Philippines won eight apiece.