KONI wants to top 2003 medal tally

KONI wants to top 2003 medal tally

Moch. N. Kurniawan, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The National Sports Council (KONI) expects its 2005 Southeast
Asia (SEA) Games team to exceed its medal haul from the last
regional competition after successfully lobbying for an
additional 53 events.

"I'm sure that we could reach more than 210 medals, which was
the total of our medal collection in the last SEA Games," KONI
head of development Djoko Pramono told a news conference on
Tuesday.

"But we couldn't speculate about winning the SEA Games,
because we have difficulty in beating Thailand and Vietnam at
present."

Djoko thanked the KONI delegation to the Southeast Asia Games
Federation meeting in Manila from April 28-30 for securing the
additional events for the 23rd Games, to be held in December in
the Philippine capital.

The delegation was led by KONI secretary-general Djohar Arifin
Husin, accompanied by senior officials including Indra
Kartasasmita and Sri Sudono Sumarto.

Among the additional events are men's and women's badminton
team competitions, men's and women's tennis teams, light
flyweight and light middleweight in bodybuilding, blitz chess
men's and women's singles, the over 100 kilograms class in the
men's division of judo and over 78 kilograms in the women's.

"About 85 percent of our proposal was accepted in the
meeting," Djoko said.

"Now we can predict that we will be able to beat the
Philippines although it will send some 300 athletes to China for
six months to train."

Indonesia, which dominated the SEA Games in the 1980s and
early 1990s, finished third in the medal standings for the 2003
SEA Games, behind champion Vietnam and Thailand.

Meanwhile, Djohar hoped that Indonesian athletes would be more
motivated to win gold because of the additional events.

"We are pleased with the addition of the events because in the
last SEAG Federation meeting, it was decided that the SEA Games
would only feature events which were listed for the Olympic
Games," he said.

"Events like men's and women's badminton teams, men's and
women's tennis teams will finally be competed in the 2005 SEA
Games, which is good news for Indonesia."