Jakarta shines in the pool

Jakarta shines in the pool

JAKARTA (JP): Elsa Manora Nasution of Jambi took her gold
medal tally to 11, but this was still not enough to stop
Jakarta's domination of the national age group invitational
championships which ended on Saturday.

The gold medals gave Indonesia's Southeast Asian Games
mainstay Elsa the title of best swimmer in addition to her
victories in the 200-meter butterfly and 800-meter freestyle in
the final day of the three-day meet.

Elsa won the 200m butterfly with the time of two minutes and
24.72 seconds, and the 800m freestyle in 9:37,22.

Despite Elsa's convincing form, Jambi finished only fourth
overall. Jambi got all its gold medals from Elsa, and with its
two silvers and five bronzes, it was seven golds clear behind
Central Java.

Jakarta was the undisputed winner with a collection of 23
golds, 16 silvers and 18 bronzes in the championships, which also
served as a national selection for the ASEAN age group
competition in Bangkok next month and the Asia Pacific swimming
meet in Pusan, South Korea this August.

East Java

East Java came a distant second with 18 golds, 29 silvers and
21 bronzes.

Only three national records were broken at the swimming meet,
with East Java's Steven Chandra the last one to set a new mark.
Steven splashed his way to a record breaking time of 2:12.47 in
the age group II on Saturday, shaving 2.81 seconds off Ivan
Saad's eight-year-old mark.

The swimming meet also saw a scanty number of participants, as
only nine provinces fielded teams in the competition. Some
swimmers, including Elsa, won their golds without competition.

Committee chairman Lukman Niode said that many swimmers failed
to take part in the championships due to the final school exams
now still underway.

Outstanding swimmers like Wisnu Wardana, Richard Sam Bera,
Metri Widya Pangestika, Olga Halim and Catherine Surya were among
the major absentees. They are undergoing overseas training
stints.

Medals table:

G S B
Jakarta 23 16 18
East Java 18 29 21
Central Java 17 18 16
Jambi 11 2 5
West Java 7 8 8
Lampung 3 5 1
N. Sulawesi 2 1 2
S. Kalimantan 0 0 5