PBSI on a talent search at Yogyakarta tournament

Musthofid, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The Badminton Association of Indonesia (PBSI) hopes that a potential world beater will be discovered at next week's National Badminton Championship in Yogyakarta.

PBSI will use the Jan. 25-30 event to recruit talented young players for a place at the Cipayung national training center in East Jakarta.

"This in the final stage of the 2004 recruitment process. We will devise a shortlist of young players to be nominated for Cipayung," PBSI secretary-general MF Siregar told The Jakarta Post here on Wednesday.

"The nominees will be groomed for one month at Cipayung, beginning in the first week of February, to see which from the shortlist should stay."

The tournament, held over from 2004, will feature a team contest for clubs and an under-19 individual competition.

Siregar added that the number of new players for recruitment would be determined by the vacant slots in each of the five events -- men and women's singles, men's and women's doubles and mixed doubles.

"However, we will not just discard those who fail the selection. They are among the best, anyway. They are too good to be let go. We will place them in a training program for second- string players. They can be called up anytime as a replacement in the case of injury or other withdrawals," Siregar said.

"But we have yet to decide the place. We will talk it over soon. Ragunan (sports academy) is one of options for the training ground."

Contacted separately, trainer Hendrawan said two more players were needed in the women's singles to join Silvi Antarini, Firdasari, Maria Kristin and Francisca.

"Hopefully, they are the players we can rely on for the international challenge," said the 2000 Sydney Olympics silver medalist.

Men's doubles mentor Christian Hadinata said that he had yet to be informed about the additional number of players to be recruited.

"I have yet to be informed by Icuk (Sugiarto, the center's training director)," said Christian, who was Icuk's predecessor.

Of the seven men's doubles pairs currently at Cipayung, Candra Wijaya/Sigit Budiarto, Markis Kido/Setiawan and Alven Yulianto/Luluk Hadiyanto will miss the Yogyakarta event because they are committed to playing in the Korean Open the same week.

"Their absence might reduce the competitiveness of the Yogyakarta tournament," Siregar acknowledged. "We can't avoid such a no-show, because both tournaments are important for our development program."

The Yogyakarta badminton tournament, to be staged in two sports halls, will feature an overall 619 athletes, 283 of whom are in the junior section.

The players, according Sudayat from the organizing committee, come from 33 clubs and 21 provinces.