RI denied Olympic women's singles bet
Eva C. Komandjaja, Jakarta
Indonesia has been deprived of the chance of contending the women's singles in the badminton competition at the next Olympic Games in Athens, following the announcement of the rankings by the International Badminton Federation on Saturday.
The Games will run from Aug. 13 to 29. The badminton competition has a quota of 172 players in five events and as many as 30 countries will be playing in the competition.
According to the IBF rules, only players in the top 16 of the IBF rankings as of May 1 are eligible to compete at Athens. Countries can only send a maximum of three entries in each of the events.
Indonesia has two entries in men's singles, three in men's doubles, two in mixed doubles and one in the women's doubles.
The women's singles event sees no Indonesia's contenders. Indonesia's best hope, Silvi Antarini, is ranked only 66th in the world. Other players of note, Adrianti Firdasari and Maria Kristin are playing with Silvi in Indonesia's team for this week's Uber Cup in Jakarta.
Christian Hadinata, the director of the national training center, said that the failure to have a women's singles player in the Olympics had been predicted as "Indonesia's hopefuls were still relatively new".
About the Olympics prospects, Christian said the team would rest its hopes on men's singles, doubles and mixed doubles.
The top Indonesian men's singles contenders are Sony Dwi Kuncoro and Taufik Hidayat.
Sony, the world No 9, was a certainty for the Games, while Asia champion Taufik, who is ranked No. 17, will be going only because China's top-ranked Xia Xuanze and Chen Yu were unable to join their compatriots Lin Dan, Chen Hong and Bao Chunlai due to the IBF's quota.
The quota also denies 12th-ranked men's doubles pair Candra Wijaya/Halim Haryanto a place in the Olympics, with Indonesia having another three pairs ahead of them -- Hadiyanto/Alven Yulianto (No. 7), Flandy Limpele/Eng Hian (No. 8) and Sigit Budiarto/Tri Kusharjanto (No. 10).
With Tony Gunawan, who now plays for the United States, Candra won the Olympic gold in Sydney four years ago.
Indonesia has two mixed doubles pairs going to Athens: Nova Widianto/Vita Marissa and Anggun Nugroho/Eny Widiowati, while Jo Novita/Lita Nurlita will be Indonesia's only participants in the women's doubles.
Out of 30 countries participating in the badminton competition at the Games, China, which swept four of the five titles in Sydney, has the most entries in the list with 13, followed by South Korea with 12.
The European badminton giant Denmark will send 10 entries.
Japan surprisingly managed nine entries, while Britain with eight has the same number of entries as Indonesia. Thailand, Malaysia and Germany have six entries apiece.