Quality officials will lead to better events

Novan Iman Santosa, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Track-and-field officials from 11 Asian countries are taking a one-week training course here to enable them to recruit more officials, judges in their respective countries.

The Technical Official Education and Certification System (TOECS) level-one course is being held by the Jakarta Regional Development Center (RDC). It opened on Thursday and will run until next Tuesday at Madya Athletics Stadium in the Bung Karno Sports Complex in Central Jakarta.

Participants are from Brunei Darussalam, India, Indonesia, Laos, Lebanon, Malaysia, Maldives, Myanmar, Singapore, Sri Lanka and Thailand.

Most of the participants were handpicked by the Asian Amateur Athletics Association (AAAA) based on the individuals' past achievements and skill in training would-be officials.

"The course participants are certified officials and by taking this course they will be able to train other officials in their own countries," Jakarta RDC director Ria Lumintuarso, told reporters after the opening ceremony.

"The presence of capable technical officials, or judges, at track-and-field meets is very important to verify the results, as well as enforcing event regulations."

"Good officiating will also improve the quality of events, which will lead to the improvement of athletes' achievement," he added.

Indonesia has 60 certified level-one judges for national level events and five international judges.

"It is our aim to increase the number of judges in both national and international levels. But the problem is that many of our officials don't understand English very well, even though most of the courses are conducted in English," said Ria.

Also present at the ceremony was honorary secretary of AAAA, Maurice Nicholas, secretary-general of the Indonesian Amateur Athletics Association (PASI) Tigor Tanjung, course director Reginald Brandis of Australia and co-lecturer Waidyatilaka of Sri Lanka.

Meanwhile, Brandis said good officiating could also contribute to the development of athletics.

"If the judges fail to officiate properly, records will go unacknowledged," he said. "This will lead to disappointment among athletes and sponsors."

Tanjung also said it was important to have more capable judges to improve standards in athletics.

"An athletics meet needs a lot of judges. There should be at least one judge for every event. We need more judges if we want to organize more athletics events here," he said.

"With more competitions available, our athletes will be able to compete with others and achieve better times and distances."