Our great sporting tradition

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.