KONI to exclude wrestling and judo from Olympics preparation

JAKARTA (JP): The National Sports Council (KONI) is likely to exclude judo and wrestling from its training program for the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney in September.

Olympics training director Arie Sudewo said on Monday the council had only invited about 50 athletes from nine sports -- archery, badminton, boxing, swimming and diving, tae kwon do, tennis, track and field, weightlifting and windsurfing -- to attend the centralized training program starting here on Tuesday.

"We are only preparing athletes from nine sports. If other sports organizations are competing their athletes in prequalifying rounds, they can consider their athletes as competing in international individual events," he said.

The Indonesian Judo Association (PJSI) had planned to send men's judoka Kresna Bayu and women's judoka Aprilia Marzuki to compete in the Asian championships in Japan in May, which serves as the Olympic's prequalifying round.

Bayu and Aprilia are expected to earn their tickets to the Olympics by finishing in the top five in the championships. The judokas failed to qualify for the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta.

The Indonesian Wrestling Association (PGSI) is also planning to secure Olympic berths for its athletes in the same way. It will send Dedy Wahyudi from East Kalimantan and Zulhaidir from South Kalimantan to compete in the freestyle pre-Olympic qualifying round in Tokyo from Feb. 25 to Feb. 27.

Dedy will compete in the flyweight division while Zulhaidir will wrestle in the bantamweight division. Both wrestlers must finish in the top 10 in their divisions to go to the Olympics.

Arie said some boxers and shuttlers who were competing in the prequalifying rounds until May could also attend the training program.

"If the boxers and shuttlers eventually fail to qualify, they can quit the training program immediately," said Arie, who is also the council's vice chairman.

Arie also said the council would go ahead with a centralized training program despite a financial shortage. He said it had not received Rp 4.9 billion (US$658,000) from the Rp 6.9 billion the government had pledged it to finance the training program.

"We have Rp 2 billion from the Gelora Senayan Management Board and we have collected another Rp 500 million to start the training. We don't want to delay the training due to a financial shortage," he said.

Badminton

Meanwhile, the council discussed the Olympics training program with officials from the Badminton Association of Indonesia (PBSI) in a meeting on Monday.

Soemarjono, a PBSI official which was appointed project manager for the 2000 Olympics, said the council had offered to cooperate with the association to help maintain their tradition of Olympic gold medals.

"We are very proud to be invited to the discussion. KONI offered the routine meeting with PBSI officials, shuttlers and KONI officials to explain the training guidelines arranged by KONI. Those shuttlers need a motivation boost from KONI besides improvements in their technical skills and tactics," he said.

Team manager Hadi Nazri said the shuttlers would compete in the Thomas and Uber Cups finals, the All-England, the Swiss Open and the Japan Open before deciding who would be sent to Sydney.

"On May 1, there will be the selection of the shuttlers for the Olympics. We are now focusing on the preparation for the Cups, which will take place in May in Kuala Lumpur," he said.(ivy)