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."