KONI to unveil Asian Games team by Thursday

Musthofid, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The National Sports Council (KONI) expects to announce most of the team for the 2002 Asian Games on Thursday, but for a few sports they remain undecided, according to national training director here on Wednesday.

"Tomorrow (Thursday), we're going to present to KONI's chairman, the results from the consultation meeting we had yesterday," Imron ZS, a KONI chief in charge of training, told reporters on Wednesday.

"But, for a few sports, we have not settled on the list until after the athletes complete their tryouts," he said.

Those sports were beach volleyball, boxing, badminton, judo and tae kwon do.

The beach volleyball team, which will have two male and two female pairs, will have a final try out during the Asian Beach Volleyball tour, which will be held in Bali next week.

The boxing squad is grooming only one athlete Bonyx Saweho, but Bara Gomies, who has already been ordered off, could return if he fares well enough to be considered a medal contender in Busan, South Korea, the location for this year's Asiad.

Bara, Bonyx and junior boxer Melky Lelemboto are currently training in Cuba.

Indonesia's prime sport, badminton has yet to decide the fixed lineup pending the athletes' participation at the Indonesian Open in Surabaya, East Java, next week.

"As for judo, we have yet to receive the latest report about Aprilia (Marzuki) from Germany," Imron said. Aprilia is one of the only two judokas that Indonesia will send to Busan. The other is Sri Endang Lestari.

Likewise, the national tae kwon doins are currently on a tour of South Korea. And the team could probably recruit new members in Sinta Berliana Heru and M. Iman Dalam, both of whom are on the traveling squad.

Although it will be a final decision on the entry list, Imron refused to close the door completely for possible changes, given the schedule that the entry-form-by-name list can be submitted on Aug. 28 at the latest.

After a series of removals from an initial 176 of the candidates at the start of the training camp early this year, KONI has a tentative list of 104 athletes, who will compete in 20 sports.

The Korean Asian Games are scheduled for Sept. 29 to Oct. 14.

In Bangkok, four years ago, Indonesia came to the event with 119 athletes and returned home with six gold medals to finish in 11th place among 42 countries.