PASI targets world's top 16 for sprinters in 2000 Olympics

JAKARTA (JP): The Indonesian Amateur Athletics Association (PASI) eyes the world's top 16 for women's and men's sprinters, and men's relay team at the 2000 Olympics in Sydney.

The Indonesian woman sprinter is Irene Truitje Joseph, male sprinter, Yanis Raubaba, and the men's relay team comprises Johannes Murray, Subakir, Mahmud Hamzah and Sukari.

PASI Secretary-General Tigor M. Tanjung said that the sprinters had great chances to enter the semifinals of the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney, from Sept. 15 to Oct. 1.

"I hope that the sprinters can compete until the semifinal, or top 16," he told The Jakarta Post on Tuesday.

PASI is grooming nine athletes for the Olympics. They are Irene (women's 100m), Supriati Sutono (women's 5,000m), Yanis (men's 100m), Nyoman Rae Trisandiana (women's long jump), Nunung Jayadi (men's pole vault) and four 4x100m relay team members.

Of the lineup, only Irene, Yanis and the relay team have met the time limit B qualification for the Olympics. Irene has qualified with a best time of 11.56 in the women's 100m dash in the 1999 Southeast Asian (SEA) Games. Yanes also qualified in the 100m dash with a time of 10.40 seconds.

The men's relay team qualified after clocking 39.95 seconds in the 1999 Games in Brunei Darussalam last August.

But Tigor did not brush aside the other athletes' chances to reach the prestigious spot in the world event. He named Supriati and women's marathon runner Ruwiyati who were expected to qualify for the quadrennial event before Sept. 11.

"If qualified, I hope Supriati can enter the world's top 10. Ruwiyati is also expected to qualify. For Nunung and Nyoman Rae, I want to be realistic, their chances are very slim. Their personal bests are far from the entry standards requirement. But we must dare to set a target for them. They have to train hard to achieve the target," he said.

The B limit for the women's 5,000m is 15:55.00, women's marathon two hours 45.00 seconds, men's pole vault 5.45m and women's long jump 6.50m.

Supriati's personal best is 15:54.45 which she clocked in the 1998 Asian Games in Bangkok, but her time is not accepted because IAAF only acknowledges recent qualifying times during the period of Jan. 1, 1999 to Sept. 11. Nunung has sharpened his personal best to 5.05m in 1999 Games while Nyoman Rae has only achieved 6.01m.

All the athletes still have to compete in three warm-up tournaments for the Olympics in Taipei and Thailand in May and in Singapore in July.

In the Australian Open Track and Field Championship, three national sprinters, Irene, Subakir and John, nicknamed for Johannes Murray, missed the target set by PASI. Irene, who is aiming to improve her personal best in the 100m to meet the A limit of 10.27, only finished second with 12.12 in the under 20- year-old event last week.

She also finished second in the 200m with 24.57, while Subakir only clocked 10.82 (100m) and 21.09 (200m) and John reached 10.94 (100m) and 21.84 (200m). (ivy)