RI archers expect clean sweep at Chiang Mai

JAKARTA (JP): The Indonesian Archery Association is ready for a clean sweep of the four gold medals up for grabs in the archery competition at the 18th Southeast Asian Games in Chiang Mai, Thailand, from Dec. 9 to Dec. 17.

"For us, the SEA Games are just a stopover. Our ultimate destination is the Olympic Games (in Atlanta next year) because our athletes are world-class," says the association's secretary- general, Edo Rahantoknam.

The performance of Indonesia's archers, particularly its women archers, has been impressive. In the 38th World Archery Championships in Jakarta last August, the Indonesian trio of Nurfitriana Lantang, Hamdiah and Dahliana Damanhuri won the bronze medal in the women's team Olympic Round event after beating the strong German team.

In last year's Asian Games in Hiroshima, another trio of Rusena Gelanteh, Dahliana and Purnama Pandiangan, won the silver medal, in the same event, after beating world champion South Korea.

Thus, according to Rahantoknam, at Southeast Asian level no other country will be able to match Indonesia in archery.

Dahliana, Nurfitriana and Hamdiah will be fielded in the upcoming SEA Games, along with budding archer Elizabeth.

In the men's division, eight archers have been chosen to go to Chiang Mai. They are Syafruddin Mawi and Hendra Setijawan from East Java and two junior athletes from Jakarta, Wahyu Hidayat and Ditto Rembran.

Meanwhile, chairman of the Indonesian Boxing Association, Paul Toding, told The Jakarta Post that Indonesian boxers should be able to beat their host rivals on knock-outs or on referee stop contests at the SEA Games.

"If our boxers could only win on points, I'm afraid host Thailand would engineer the calculation of the points for the benefit of its own boxers," Toding added. (arf)