KONI to set ruling on PON participants

JAKARTA (JP): The excitement surrounding the 15th National Games (PON) in Surabaya is less than the upcoming Euro 2000 in the Netherlands and Belgium. However, the importance of national athletes competing in the quadrennial event remains an interesting discussion at home.

The National Sports Council (KONI) official in charge of athletes' development, Mochammad Hindarto, said on Thursday that in the future the council must issue a regulation on the age of participating athletes in PON.

"PON is staged to recruit potential athletes to be groomed to represent the country at a higher level of multisport events, including the Southeast Asian (SEA) Games, Asian Games (Asiad) and Olympics," he said.

"But some provinces do not think about this purpose. They only consider their own pride, ignoring the importance of talent scouting and athletes' development programs."

"If all sport organizations and provinces only relied on veteran athletes, what about the youngsters? When will we give them a chance to showcase their skills?"

Hindarto referred to a SEA Games seminar in Kuala Lumpur recently which highlighted the possibility of limiting the age of participants to under 23 years of age.

"The consideration was that athletes under 23 can still improve to perform better at Asiad and the Olympics because the idea of staging SEA Games is to enable Southeast Asian athletes to perform in both major events."

"This matter can be discussed in the SEA Games Federation council meeting soon."

Hindarto was responding to a request from the West Java chapter of the Badminton Association of Indonesia (PBSI) to include Olympics qualifiers in PON.

"PBSI has sent a letter with the names of 19 competitors in PON. KONI will forward the letter to the PON organizing committee to not permit them (from competing). This is for a bigger purpose."

West Java has registered Marlev Mainaky, Taufik Hidayat, Ricky Subagja, Rexy Mainaky, Candra Wijaya, Flandy Limpele, Elysa Nathanael and Lidya Djaelawidjaja to compete in PON.

PBSI has scrapped the idea, saying the shuttlers were prioritized to retain the Olympics gold medal tradition in badminton for Indonesia. (yan)