National archers suffer big blow in warm-up event

JAKARTA (JP): China and Australia landed a daunting blow to Indonesia's bid for a commendable showing in the 38th world archery championships in August when they strolled to a commanding lead at the national meet yesterday.

The Chinese and Australian archers, who entered the annual meet in preparation for the Aug. 1-Aug. 6 world championships, battled for the top places in the four events contested yesterday as their Indonesian rivals fell short of their pre-tournament expectations.

Both China and Australia are taking part in the national championships as non-competitors.

The triumphant trio of China's Asian Games set the pace in the women's team event, when they totaled 1,947 points. Australia was 130 points behind, with Lampung in third in the provisional standings with 1,777.

With just two events left, the Chinese look set to finish first. Their male teammates also came closer to victory when they combined a total of 1,857 points. Australia trailed with 1,803, ahead of East Java which collected 1,749.

Australian Jackson Fear denied China a clean sweep in the individual events. He scored 632 points to take a seven-point lead over China's Li Xian Wu. Another Chinese, Luo Hengyu, followed in third place with 622.

Hendra Setijawan gave Indonesia a slim chance of winning the men's individual event when he managed 597 points for the sixth spot. Hendra, who leads the East Javanese challenge, opened up a 15-point margin over Wahyu Hidayat of Jakarta in his bid to win the national championships.

The Chinese trio of Lin Sang, Wang Xiaozhu and He Ying fought tooth and nail to take the women's individual title. They finished the second day yesterday with just a two-point gap among them. Lin made it 651, Wang 649 and He 647.

Hamdiah of East Kalimantan was a distant sixth with 618 to remain in contention for the individual title. She needs to maintain her form to win the national championships gold medal.

National women's team members who took the Asian Games silver medal, Rusena Gelanteh, Dahliana and Purnama Pandiangan, trailed Hamdiah in the seventh, eighth and ninth places respectively.

The lackluster showing could cost Purnama exclusion from the national team for the world championships.

The Indonesian Archery Association indicated that the Lampung athlete would lose her place when top officials of the association gather for an evaluation meeting shortly after the national championships.

"Purnama could manage only 1,250 points during her recent training session, while her teammates scored an average of 1,300," project officer for the world meet, Nana Kosasih, said.

Purnama failed to turn up for the final practice last week due to family commitments.

Nana said Kusuma Wardhani, a member of the 1986 Olympic silver medal winning trio, would be a strong favorite to take Purnama's place.

The association will select four out of 10 archers for each of its men's and women's teams to represent Indonesia in the world championships. (amd)