PBSI on a talent search at Yogyakarta tournament
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.