Pino, Nemo agree to join Olympic team
Pino, Nemo agree to join Olympic team
JAKARTA (JP): The Bahari brothers, Pino and Nemo, have finally agreed to accept a call from the National Sports Council (KONI) to don their gloves for Indonesia in the Olympic Games.
A KONI spokesman told reporters yesterday that after hours of discussion yesterday, council chairman Wismoyo Arismunandar succeeded in convincing the two brothers not to give up boxing.
Pino and Nemo, two of their father Bahari's four boxing prodigies, also canceled their plan to resign prior to the 18th SEA Games last year.
Middleweight Pino and featherweight Nemo are among five Indonesian boxers who have qualified for the Atlanta Olympics next July.
Pino earlier said he wanted to resign because he felt he had come to the end of his career after suffering a series of defeats in various international tournaments lately.
Nemo earlier also said he wanted to hang up his gloves because he is no longer interested in boxing.
The two brothers gave no response to the call-up from the Indonesian Amateur Boxing Association for a centralized training session here under the tutelage of Cuban coach Isidiro Trotman.
They insist on being trained at home in Bali by their father, Daniel, who has raised them since they were small.
Chairman of the association Paul Toding threatened to write them off the list of five boxers bound for Atlanta if they failed to respond by March 28.
Wismoyo settled the problem by offering a compromise that suited both conflicting parties, according to spokesman Max Sopacua.
Pino and Nemo are allowed to continue their own training program under the tutelage of their father but they must join team mates La Paene Masara, Hermensen Ballo and Hendrik Simangunsong here, not in Bali.
Pino and Nemo told Wismoyo they preferred their father to Trotman, whom the boxing body has hired for two years, because their father understands them better.
Trotman put too much emphasis on basic techniques. But what they need is exposure to more advanced techniques, Sopacua quoted the two brothers as saying.
Pino, Nemo and their father are expected to come to Jakarta in one or two days to start training at the Army Special Force's base camp in Cijantung, East Jakarta, for about 20 days.
The five boxers will be sent to Uzbekistan for a one and a half month stint and then to Cuba for another two-month stint. (arf)