Report on Indonesian Open

As the promoter of the 1996 Sony Badminton Indonesia Open in Medan, I feel obliged to respond to various inaccuracies in your criticism of the local Organizing Committee. Firstly, there was no "lack of spectators" as evidenced by near-capacity crowds on the last three days of the event.

In fact, nearly 1,000 paying fans were turned away on the final evening as it was a complete sell-out with over 4,000 persons. Your article stated that there were "almost no promotional banners up in Medan", but it is a fact that over 600 banners were erected around Medan.

The event was also publicized on RCTI, in various newspaper ads and a "Meet the Players" event at Medan Mall on Aug. 24 and 25 drew crowds of over 1,500 each day.

As far as the poor treatment of the press, it is a fact that many press people, including your reporter, were provided with round trip airfares to Medan.

The press room at the stadium was well equipped with computers, printers, TV, telephone lines, etc. and many press commented to me that this was one of the best press rooms outside of Jakarta. As far as press seating, many folding chairs were specially erected near the court to allow close access for reporters.

Indeed, there were various problems which occurred and this was not totally unexpected as the local Organizing Committee had never hosted a major international badminton event before.

However, the problems as portrayed by your paper were greatly exaggerated and even false. As the Indonesia Badminton Association is trying to bring world-class badminton to all Indonesians in cities other than Jakarta, I would hope that The Jakarta Post would report in a more accurate and positive manner.

Mark Adams

Jakarta

Note: Our reporter had been trying to get a comments from the local OC officials but received "No comment".