Mahuse bids farewell with bronze medal
JAKARTA (JP): Frans Mahuse of West Java ended his javelin career with a bronze medal yesterday as the 14th National Games track and field competition started with a new meet record in the men's 110m hurdles.
Mahuse threw 62.14 meters, far below his 1989 National Games record of 72.90m, his unbeaten 1991 national record of 75.58m and his 1987 Southeast Asian Games mark of 75.38m.
Finishing third was a disappointing farewell result for the 33-year-old Irian-born veteran. But Mahuse had something to cheer given that his record remained intact. Kristian Kaise of Irian Jaya took the gold with 66.16m, 4.02m beyond Mahuse's best throw of the competition.
Mahuse's reason for his poor showing was a knee injury he picked up last Wednesday. "I was so careless, I did not warm up enough during a training session and strained my tendon," Mahuse told The Jakarta Post yesterday.
"Doctors said I should take a rest -- for months if I am to recover properly from the injury. But I forced myself to compete because I have decided that this will be my last National Games appearance," he said.
Other athletes
Despite his poor showing, however, Mahuse fared far better than other athletes of his generation. National men's 100m record holder Mardi Lestari of North Sumatra, for instance, failed to progress beyond the first heat.
National record holder in the men's 3,000m steeplechase Parluatan Siregar of North Sumatra also suffered the same fate. He finished eighth in 9:54.50, far behind the gold medalist Martabek of West Kalimantan who clocked 9:22.29.
Mahuse, who has been competing for West Java since the 1993 National Games, said that even though he was very upset with the result he would not change his mind. "I have promised myself that I will end my track and field career after these Games. I will from now on concentrate on my job," he said.
Mahuse has been working as an officer at the state-owned Bank Dagang Negara's training department in Jakarta since 1993.
Emotional
Kristian Kaise, who gets Rp 7 million (US$2,957) for winning the javelin gold medal for Irian Jaya, said he might have been able to better Mahuse's Games record had he not picked up the "wrong" javelin and had he been able to control his emotions.
"I got emotional after knowing that Frederikus Mahuse (the eventual silver medalist) threw better than me in the second attempt," Kaise explained on why he fouled in the fourth attempt.
What's more, Kaise said, "I got the 'right' javelin for my hand only after the fifth throw." This, he said, severely limited his chances of throwing better.
In the men's 110m hurdles, this year's Vietnam Open champion Rudi Wicaksono clocked 14.54 to shave two hundredths of a second off the old meet record set by Heru Prayogo of Central Java in 1989.
Rudy's time in the Vietnam Open two weeks ago was 14.40. "But it was calculated manually. The time I clocked just now with a wind reading of 0.1m/sec was certainly better," he said.
Rudi said in the first instance that he was surprised to break the Games record. But then he said he could have broken the existing national record of 14.29 set by Heru in 1987 had there been a heat. The heat was canceled after the withdrawal of a participant. Rudi, who works at PT Kiani Kertas's Management Information System department, said his personal best was 13.90 which he clocked in training. (arf)