Junior athletes shine in Taipei Open

JAKARTA (JP): Young stars Irine Truitje Joseph and Nunung Jayadi broke personal bests in the women's 100-meter dash and men's pole vault during the two-day Taipei Open track and field event on May 29 and May 30.

Irine, 18, and from Maluku, clocked 11.79 seconds, bettering her own junior national record of 11.90 set in Jakarta in 1997.

Nunung from Jakarta improved his jump from 4.95 meters to 5.00m in the meet held in Kaohsiung. His old record was set on the first day of the National Track and Field Invitational Meet at Senayan Madya Stadium early in May.

Women's hammer thrower Kusmiati also took part in the tournament but was unable to better her record of 38.71m set in May's invitational. Kusmiati threw 33.64 meters in the event.

Irine and Nunung, who are undergoing training as gold medal prospects for the 20th Southeast Asian (SEA) Games in Brunei Darussalam in August, have recorded extraordinary feats this year. However, Barmawi Chaidir, secretary-general of the Indonesian Amateur Athletic Association (PASI), did not hold high expectations of their chances.

He mentioned four other disciplines in which national athletes possess a greater likelihood of success.

"We can't predict about our medal target but hopefully we can win medals from four disciplines, men's and women's marathon, women's pole vault and women's hammer throw," he said on Wednesday.

But he did rate Nunung's chances as relatively good.

"Some athletes, including Supriati Sutono (the 1998 Asian Games gold medalist in women's 5,000m) and Nunung Jayadi also have chances to win golds," he said.

Irine set a new national record of 23.92 seconds in the women's 200m dash in the May invitational, slashing the old record of 24.24 seconds of Henny Maspaitela from the 11th SEA Games in 1981.

On the same occasion, Nunung improved his own national record from 4.90m to 4.95m. His old record was set in Jakarta in June 1997.

Irine expressed hope that she would be able to maintain her own national record in the 200m and break the 14-year-old women's 100m record.

"I'll try not to run under my own record in the 200m dash but at the same time I will try to break the national record in the 100m set by Henny," she said.

Henny's 100m record of 11.66 seconds dates back to September 1985. (ivy)