Our great sporting tradition
To those in the know the unimpassioned reactions here at home should have come as no surprise after the initial excitement over Taufik Hidayat's gold medal victory in Athens died down. As welcome as Saturday's victory over South Korean seven seed Shon Seung-Mo most certainly was, it also came as a major surprise to the millions of badminton enthusiasts here in Indonesia -- and particularly to all the former Olympic badminton medal medalists here, who know the 23-year-old shuttler as a talented, but emotional and unstable player.
Nevertheless, in the competitive world of modern-day sports, gold is gold, and despite the much-proclaimed adage that, in sports and the Olympics in particular, the important thing is not to win, but to take part, the medal tally won by participating teams never fails to make the headlines in newspapers all over the world. In modern sports, victory is equated with a nation's honor -- so much so that governments and patriotic citizens and entrepreneurs are willing to shower huge amounts of cash or assets on winners, even though it is true that, in the process, the original spirit of keeping the Olympic Games an arena of amateur sports is being eroded.
It is in this context that Taufik's gold medal victory in Athens -- following in the footsteps of Alan Budikusuma and Susi Susanti in 1992, the doubles pairs of Ricky Subagja/Rexy Mainaky in 1996 and Tony Gunawan/Candra Wijaya in 2000, not to mention the silver and bronze medalists over the years -- deserves to be hailed. As this country's founding father President Sukarno used to say, it is a great nation that can properly appreciate the achievements of its athletes. And undeniably, the principle of winning in fair competition and in a spirit of good sportsmanship are assets that can greatly benefit any nation in the process of building a healthy democracy.
It is certainly disappointing to have to note that Indonesia's sports achievements have considerably deteriorated over the past decade, and for reasons that are hard for the ordinary man-on-the-street to explain. Many Indonesians from older generations still remember how, in 1956, the Indonesian soccer eleven was able to force even the mighty Soviet Union to accept a draw in the Melbourne Olympics. Those were the years when Indonesia was a power to be reckoned with in Asian soccer.
Compared to the 1950s and 1960s or 1970s, Indonesia at present, with its population of more than 210 million, is a much bigger nation, if only in terms of population. Unlike in those years, benefactors and the state are willing to shower millions of rupiah worth in cash and assets on winning athletes. Unlike then, athletes these days have greater access to modern training methods, and the government plays a part in the development and "guidance" of sports. And yet, our achievements remain minimal.
What, then, is missing? If general impressions are anything to go by, one reason for the decline may be that during those early decades after Indonesia's independence, ordinary Indonesians, from school children and students to government employees and office workers, actively enjoyed some form of sport -- be it track-and-field, swimming, basketball or soccer. But then, green, open spaces and parks were easy to find, even in relatively large, overcrowded cities such as Jakarta, and were not yet sacrificed to housing complexes and shopping malls.
Perhaps, if the relevant authorities are truly concerned about the state of sports in this country, one of the first steps they should take is to give real support to the development of this long neglected aspect of human development by building the necessary facilities, and -- last but not least -- try to develop a genuine passion for sports and for achievement, in general among our young, especially students at the elementary and middle school levels. If that were to happen, hopefully, it would not take long before Indonesia would reclaim its lost position in the realm of Asian and, who knows, world sports.