PTMSI congress urged after poor result
Musthofid, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
The poor performance of the Indonesian table tennis team at the recent South East Asian Games (SEA Games) has prompted calls for a special congress to reshuffle the executive board of PTMSI, the national table tennis governing body.
"We have no other option but to recommend a special convention for the executive board to account for their jobs," M. Farchan, a representative of the Central Java chapter, told reporters during a discussion here on Wednesday.
The discussion, held at the headquarters of the National Sports Council (KONI), was organized by the Jakarta Sports Journalists' Association.
Farchan said that as many as 12 provincial organizations had supported the calls. Among them are all chapters in Java: West Java, Central Java, East Java, Yogyakarta and Jakarta.
"The number of chapters is more than enough given the fact that the incumbent chairman (Triyanto Saudin) was selected by a convention attended by only 13 out of 28 chapters," he said.
A meeting attended by a number of provincial chapters in Semarang, Central Java, on Nov. 5 set a Jan. 15 deadline for the special congress.
"We will be waiting for the response in mid-January," Farchan said.
Triyanto Saudin was appointed PTMSI chairman at the 2000 convention to replace Sjafrie Sjamsudin, former Jakarta military chief.
The fact that many of his aides then deserted him testified to his lack of managerial skills. One of the deserters was former general secretary Faried Rachman, who was present at Wednesday's discussion as another speaker.
Triyanto, who was invited to the panel but failed to turn up, came under fire for his "loose" policy in which he had recruited too many people in his organization.
However, Noeryanto, an observer who formerly served as a PTMSI official in charge of the development of athletes, said such a policy should not bother him too much as long as each person involved in the organization stuck to their respective commitments.
What should come under most scrutiny, he said, was the association's dismal mission at the SEA Games, where Indonesia failed to win a single gold.
Indonesia could only bring home two silver and three bronze medals. Of the seven golds at stake, five went to Singapore, one went to Thailand and the other went to Vietnam.
It was the worst performance ever in the regional event by Indonesia, which used to dominate the sport.
To add to the woeful outing, the men's team crashed out for the first time in the preliminary round. The competition also marked another gloomy note: Indonesia lost to a team that it had never lost to before.
All these factors prompted Noeryanto to conclude that, "Indonesia is lagging behind its Southeast Asian counterparts".
He pointed to lack of adequate preparation, lack of motivation on the part of the athletes and the absence of a sound strategy as the cause to the collapse.