KONI ruling upsets PHRI

KONI ruling upsets PHRI

JAKARTA (JP): The Indonesian hockey association will abide by the National Sports Council's decision to bar the hockey team from participating in the 18th Southeast Asian Games, despite disagreeing with the council's reasoning.

The chief of the PHRI hockey association, Raj Kumar Singh, disagreed yesterday with the sports council (KONI) and training director Moch. Hindarto's claim that the hockey team is not prepared for the Dec. 9-17 SEA games.

Noting that PHRI was late in planning their centralized training program and that there has been no hockey activity for the past two years, Hindarto said Indonesia's hockey players would not match their Southeast Asian counterparts.

"The announcement is discouraging to our athletes that have been undergoing training in their respective provinces," Singh said.

PHRI will start an intensive training session in July rather than this month as suggested by KONI, after the national championship in June. "We will select our national team from the championship," Singh said.

"We could easily start a centralized training program this month, but would it be fruitful?" he asked.

"It would be better if KONI straightforwardly said that it had no funding for us because we have no chance of winning the gold medal," an emotion-filled Singh said.

The Indonesian hockey team capped its modest run at the 1989 SEA Games in Kuala Lumpur with a bronze medal.

Hockey made its last appearance in the 1989 SEA Games, with Malaysia sweeping the men's and women's gold medals. Singapore finished second in both divisions. (amd)