PBSI to groom young athletes in provincial chapters

JAKARTA (JP): The Badminton Association of Indonesia (PBSI) official in charge of athletes development, Mangombar Ferdinand Siregar, told reporters on Friday that the association planned to groom young talented athletes in provincial chapters.

"It's difficult for us to maintain a training method by centralizing the athletes in a national center like we do now. It takes a lot of funds and is ineffective," he said at the Indonesian Badminton Center in Cipayung, East Jakarta.

"PBSI will also recruit coaches for the chapters, who will be given programs and targets similar to those we give to our coaches in the center. We will ask them to groom young athletes based on the center's training standards."

"Some chapters have requested authority to stage the training when they attended the national congress in Semarang, Central Java, earlier this month."

"By adopting the new method, PBSI can observe their progress by staging an annual tournament to decide their overall rankings. We can also decide which international tournaments we will send them to by looking at their national rankings." Siregar said the new method would be more effective and efficient in seeking younger potential talent, especially for the women's teams.

On Thursday, former world number one badminton player, Susi Susanti, criticized PBSI by saying that it should have recruited younger players, aged between 14 and 16 years old, despite admitting winners of national tournaments.

"Generally, I agree with Susi's opinion because if we don't groom the younger players as soon as possible, it will be too late for them to reach international standards of playing," Siregar said.

Siregar said with the new method, PBSI would not need to have a promotion and relegation system to pick the best players in the center.

PBSI plans to expel six of its 66 players in the center this month. Three senior women's shuttlers -- Susi, Mia Audina and Meiluawati -- have withdrawn from the center. Susi withdrew due to pregnancy, Mia moved to the Netherlands to follow her husband while Meiluawati had to resign due to a knee injury.

Siregar said PBSI had focused its attention on five younger athletes, who had yet to join the center, including girls singles Chung Siang and boys singles Ignatius Rudy, who just won the national championships in Semarang earlier this month.

He also said that the annual recruitment system, which admitted winners of national circuits, would be conducted on June 1, 2000.

Specialization

Siregar said he also agreed with Susi's idea of not specializing younger players in certain events.

"We have changed this for newly recruited players. However, we'll still have to observe their performance during training and tournaments. We'll also have to discuss with players and coaches the benefits they can gain by playing singles and doubles," he said.

Up to now, senior players have concentrated on playing in only one of five events.

Siregar criticized the condition in the center's dormitories, where most shuttlers had luxury cars and telephones in their rooms.

"This is an impact of metropolitan life. We can't resist it. We call on them to open their hearts to know what their duty is."

Siregar said PBSI had yet to learn a valuable lesson from former world-class shuttlers including Rudy Hartono, Liem Swie King and Susi.

"We could have learned good lessons from them. Rudy was famous for his mental ability, Swie King was good at the jumping smash while Susi was good at endurance and flexibility. But so far, none of the sports academicians have thought to write books about their great skills," he said. (yan)