No Olympic bid for silat, official says

No Olympic bid for silat, official says

JAKARTA (JP): The International Pencak Silat Federation
(Persilat) refuted reports that it would bid to have the
Indonesian martial art included in the Olympic Games.

The federation insisted it was concentrating all its efforts
on having pencak silat featured as an exhibition sport at the
2002 Asian Games in Pusan, South Korea.

"We have never made a bid (for the Olympics) because our
priority is to ensure the sport is featured at the Pusan Asiad. I
have no idea why Megat Zulkarnain (the secretary-general of the
Malaysian Pencak Silat Federation) made that statement," Persilat
secretary-general Oyong Karmayudha said on Thursday.

"I have not contacted Megat but his statement was incorrect,
because every initiative has to go through me as Persilat's
secretary-general."

Utusan Malaysia quoted Megat as saying on Wednesday that
Persilat had received a positive response from the International
Olympics Committee (IOC) about the sport being included in the
Olympics.

"We submitted a letter to IOC president Juan Antonio Samaranch
on March 26 saying Persilat hopes the sport can be included in
the Olympics, and the response was good," Megat was quoted as
saying.

Oyong said Persilat's country members did not have the
authority to contact the IOC on their own, and any such
initiative had to go through Persilat as pencak silat's world
governing body and international federation.

"Besides, in his proposal Megat said Persilat has 83 country
members while in fact we only have some 40 members."

The chance of pencak silat being staged as an exhibition sport
at the Pusan Asiad appears to be slim, with the Pusan Asian Games
Organizing Committee (PAGOC) having already thrown out an earlier
agreement to include the sport.

"We recently received a letter from the PAGOC saying it was
not possible to stage pencak silat because there were no funds to
cover the expenses, although we submitted a proposal saying
Persilat would provide the funds.

"The letter was signed by PAGOC's deputy secretary-general,
who doesn't have any authority to make such a decision. It turns
out that PAGOC's secretary-general who made the earlier
commitment, Hahn Gi-bok, has resigned because of poor health,"
Oyong said.

"This forced us to approach PAGOC chairman Kim Un-yong, who is
also the chairman of the South Korea Olympic Committee, to
clarify the matter."

Oyong said it seemed that there had been some miscommunication
between PAGOC officials concerning pencak silat's inclusion in
the Asiad.

In another matter, Oyong expressed surprise that Malaysia had
decided to include the women's 70 to 75 kilogram weightclass in
the tarung (fighting) event at the Sept. 8 to Sept. 17 Southeast
Asian Games, while eliminating the women's team arts event.

"I think Malaysia, as the host, is doing this to ensure its
goal of taking eight of the 21 golds at stake." (nvn)