Pleasing the President

President Megawati Soekarnoputri's recent venting of the shame she felt on seeing the Indonesia national sports team beaten at the 22nd Southeast Asian (SEA) Games in Vietnam last month has provoked diverse reactions.

Quite a number of Indonesians agreed with the President, saying that it was shameful for a country that used to dominate sporting events in the region to see such a mediocre performance from its national athletes, who managed to bring home only 55 gold medals.

Others, however, disagreed, saying that it was the government's lack of commitment to sports development in this country that was to be blamed for the Vietnam debacle.

Head of the Indonesian contingent to the games, Djoko Pramono, for example, argued that 70 percent of the squad's members were young athletes who hold good prospects for the future. He defended the athletes by saying that they had worked hard for the event and should not be faulted.

Signs of Indonesia's declining standing in regional sports had in fact already begun to show at the 1999 SEA Games in Brunei Darussalam, and at the 2001 Games in Kuala Lumpur, where Indonesia finished third for the first time in the event's history. Questions naturally arise, as to who must be held responsible for the results, and how the country's performance can be improved.

Since the Office of the State Minister of Youth Affairs and Sports was dismissed by then-president Abdurrahman "Gus Dur" Wahid during his tenure, sports development has been put in the hands of the Ministry of National Education's Directorate General of Sports, which ranks lower in the bureaucratic hierarchy.

Conditions are worsened by the fact that the draft law on sports management and development, which was submitted to the State Secretariat in 1997, has yet to be endorsed by the House of Representatives. This shows how ignorant our legislators in fact are when it comes to sports.

Apart from weaknesses in the bureaucracy, sports facilities across the country remain very limited. The main target of sports development should have been students, and school teachers must be encouraged to teach them the three basic branches of sports: track-and-field, swimming and gymnastics. It is worth noting that each of these three basic branches offers more than 30 gold medals in multi-sports events, whether at the National Sports Week (PON) or the Olympics Games. The success story of big sporting countries such as the United States, Russia, China, South Korea and Japan, is also based on their high achievements in track-and-field, swimming and gymnastics.

The lack of local competitions in these areas also contributes to the difficulty of netting new talent. Fewer and fewer students are willing to engage in track-and-field, swimming or gymnastics activities in our schools. And national championships in these categories only draw few spectators.

To expect the public to be fully in charge of developing sports is pointless. Sport is regarded as being a healthy pastime, but not a serious component of a person's way of life. Therefore, many parents object to their children's ambition to become athletes, as there has been no real and tangible appreciation from the government, even when Indonesian athletes score international achievements.

At best, government officials will only say "thank you," and then slap taxes on the athletes' cash bonuses. No life insurance, no employment, no free housing or other facilities are made available to the athletes.

For Indonesia, a good lesson may be learned from 22nd SEA Games host Vietnam, which emerged as the overall champion. From being the winner of only 33 golds in 2001, Vietnam became the dominant partaker of the 2003 Games, with 158 golds -- a 480 percent increase. Vietnam had prepared its athletes well, over a 10-year training program.

If Indonesia had wanted to score a similar achievement, the National Sports Council (KONI) should have worked all out to make up for lost time. KONI had actually laid out an eight-year program, called Garuda Emas (Golden Garuda) with an eye on finishing fifth at the 2006 Asian Games in Doha. Unfortunately, the program had to be halted due to the economic crisis that hit the country in mid-1997.

KONI has now revised the program and called it Indonesia Rises, so the country will be able to offer a strong challenge in selected sports at the 2006 Games. Based on the new program, KONI will groom 100 of the best athletes from various sports, with the target of earning 11 golds at the quadrennial event. However, sports officials in KONI and other sports organizations -- who are mostly state officials, military or businessmen -- must fully commit themselves to the development of sport.

Also, if President Megawati does not want to be embarrassed once again by the national squad's mediocre performance, she must first commit herself to the development of sport, and not focus all her energy on how to win next year's general and presidential elections only.

Being the incumbent president, she could have obliged all the provincial administrations in the country to provide international-standard sports facilities. She could also urge companies to sponsor more sports competitions in order to enable talent scouting for the national squad.

And lastly, Megawati could provide welfare guarantees for national athletes based on their international achievements. Such recognition would certainly make athletes work harder and as a consequence achieve even higher standards at world-class events. If and when that happens, Megawati will no longer need to feel ashamed of her athletes' performances, either at home or abroad.