Pleasing the President

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.