PRSI buoyed by up-and-coming swimmer's SEAG performance

PRSI buoyed by up-and-coming swimmer's SEAG performance

Moch. N. Kurniawan, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Although most of its young swimmers failed to land gold, the
Indonesian Swimming Association (PRSI) believes their performance
at the 2005 Southeast Asia (SEA) Games bodes well for future top
finishes.

The country's swimmers won four gold medals in the
Philippines, thanks to 17-year-old Magdalena Sutanto in the 800-
meter women's freestyle, veteran Richard Sam Bera, 33, in the
men's 100-meter freestyle, Donny B. Utomo, 26, in the men's 200-
meter butterfly and the 4 x 100-meter medley relay quartet of
Richard, brothers Felix C and Albert C. Sutanto and Henry
Yudianto.

PRSI head of development affairs Lukman Niode said on Thursday
most of the squad set new personal bests at the Nov. 27-Dec. 5
Games, and still showed room for improvement.

"Sixty-five percent of them exceeded their personal best, with
some making excellent progress and others doing so-so."

Lukman named Magdalena, Harizal and Desak Nyoman Rina for
outstanding performances.

Magdalena, who trains in the United States, slashed nine
seconds off her old personal best with her gold-medal winning
time of 8:59.13.

Harizal, 15, recorded a time of 1:00 in the men's 100 meters
backstroke from 1:03 early this year.

"Those are sharp leaps within one year," said Lukman, himself
a winner of 14 SEA Games golds in the 1970s and 1980s.

"But they are still growing. Once they have reached the elite
level, they might not be able to make such a huge leap anymore."

Brian Howard, Sherly Yunita, Felicia Leksono and Felicia
Tjandra were considered to have made average progress, while
Margaretha Herawati and Shelomita produced satisfactory results.

Lukman said concrete results of the training programs for the
young swimmers -- including stints in the United States and
Australia -- would only be seen in the long term.

"In swimming, intensive training for young swimmers will
produce great results after three to four years. If it's only a
year of intensive training, it will be useless and will not
produce anything."

He asked the media and public to keep their expectations
realistic for the young swimmers, especially in 2006's Asian
Games.

"Frankly speaking, we can't expect those young swimmers to win
any medals let alone gold in the Asian Games. We are focusing on
the 2007 SEA Games and the 2008 Olympic Games for them."