Olympic ambition a rocky road for Indonesian athlete

Olympic ambition a rocky road for Indonesian athlete

By David Chung

SABAE, Japan (Kyodo): In his native Indonesia, his Moslem
countrymen bow down for prayer five times a day. But when
Jonathan Sianturi takes to the floor at a gymnastics competition,
he prays six times -- once for each apparatus.

"Right before every event I make a prayer to God," he says,
pointing to his chest. "Right here, always inside my heart."

Introducing Jonathan Mangiring Parmingotan Sianturi, a
Christian from the largest Moslem state in the world. He is also
the sole gymnast from this southeast Asian nation at the world
championships.

"I became a gymnast because I liked to demonstrate acrobatics
since I was a little boy," says Sianturi. "But gymnastics is
very, very different. Here I bring my country's name with me."

Indonesia is still a young sprout in the gymnastics world --
its gymnastics federation emerged in 1972, 69 years after the
first world championships were held in Antwerp, Belgium. The
southeast Asian archipelago has yet to win a medal at the world
level.

Yet Jonathan is a star in his own right. He has won five
apparatus gold medals at the Southeast Asian Games since 1987,
and was the all-around silver medalist in 1987 and 1989.

His goals are also ambitious -- to be the all-around champion
for the first time at the Games in December in Chiang Mai,
Thailand.

Jonathan 23, also dreams of making the Olympics, and the only
way to do that is to succeed at the world championships which
take place in this western Japanese city through next Wednesday.

Olympic glory

The road to Olympic glory has been a rocky one.

"Training in our country is difficult because our situation is
different from other countries," says Jonathan. "Our people think
more about education than sports."

Back home, the economy is booming, workers are learning new
technologies and others are busy mastering languages as the
country rides a huge wave of tourism.

When it comes to sports, says Sianturi, the attention paid to
gymnastics is little. Badminton and soccer are the favorites.

"Gymnastics is a very serious, difficult sport and you need
plenty of time to prepare," he adds. "But it is hard to that in
Indonesia."

Jonathan has a Russian coach to guide him specifically for
compulsory exercises, but due to organizational problems he had
limited amount of time to practice. "Only four, five months," he
says.

The son of a cigarette distributor, Jonathan works out with
the national team five days a week in the Indonesian capital of
Jakarta. But he is also lucky to have trained with the very best.

In 1991 he practiced in Rumania for two months, and two years
later worked with gymnasts in China for six weeks.

"They were both good experiences," he said. "I could work
together with a world-class team. In Southeast Asia, you do not
have that. There are only several good individuals from various
nations."

For that reason, Sianturi learns most of the routines for his
optional exercises not from fellow gymnasts or coaches, but from
watching videos of the top stars.

113th

On Thursday, Jonathan and Indonesian delegation chief Sibarani
Indra entered the cavernous Sun Dome Fukui for the first day of
optional exercises.

He placed 113th among competitors at the end of compulsories.
Only the top 36 gymnasts would advance to the all-around final,
and just nine men from nations without teams are selected by
world gymnastics body FIG to receive a ticket to Atlanta.

On the horizontal bar, he breezed through his one-arm giant
and his Kovac, a back flip in midflight ending with a regrasp of
the bar, was wonderful.

He landed on the mat and bathed in the applause of a warm
Japanese crowd. His score was 9.350, his best on any apparatus
and a far cry from the 6.850-point showing on the high bar during
compulsories.

"I feel I have succeeded if I have done here what I have been
doing in training," says Jonathan. "(On the high bar) I felt that
way."

In the end, he finished with 103.775 points after compulsory
and optional exercises and placed 94th out of 209 gymnasts. The
chances of Olympic glory vanished.

But he still smiled afterward, glad that he performed better
than before. He could not recall his overall ranking at last
year's championships in Brisbane.

Jonathan will continue doing gymnastics, for perhaps the most
important reason of all.

"I do gymnastics because I like it," he says. "It is like one
big hobby."