RI rowers still hopeful of win

RI rowers still hopeful of win

The Jakarta Post, Hanoi

After an almost unchallenged stint at the Southeast Asian (SEA)
Games, the Indonesian rowing team took bronze in the traditional
boat race on West Lake here on Friday.

In the traditional boat race crews are comprised of 20 rowers.

Indonesia's bronze came from the women's category of the 1000-
metre event. Mintauli Haloho and her teammates finished third,
ahead of three other teams, in a time of five minutes, 29.35
seconds.

Myanmar, finished first in five minutes, 77 seconds, after
struggling against Indonesia in the canoeing and Kayaking events,
followed by Vietnam in 5:02.30. The last team, Cambodia, made it
to the finish line in 5.29:35.

Indonesia started off strong in the men's traditional boat
race qualifying run, only to find that their opponents picked up
the pace in the finals.

Indonesia clocked 4 minutes and 42.81 seconds, with Myanmar,
Philippines and Vietnam scoring medals.

Myanmar's time was 4:39.57, with the Philippines 4:41.66 and
Vietnam 4:42.75.

"The other teams did not seem to have fully come into their
own during the heat," team manager Rudi Susilo told The Jakarta
Post.

Rudi said that the other teams were simply better than the
Indonesians.

"We formed our team only six months before the Games. That's
not enough time for the players to feel like a team," he said.

The team manager suggested that tryouts, in the run-up to the
tournament, would have given the team more experience and a
better chance of success.

"We tried out only once at the Formosa Dragon Boat race in
Taiwan. We took 29 golds out of 30, but they were won in the
absence of Myanmar, while the Philippines competed with their
second-layer team members," he said.

With the huge number of squad members and little financial
support, overseas training was next-to-impossible.

"Unlike rowing and canoeing, we need much more money to take
our athletes abroad for training," Rudi said.

On Saturday two gold medals will be up-for-grabs in the
women's 500-metre and men's 500-metre traditional boat races. The
two events will round off the rowing competition on the West
Lake, where the Indonesian team has collected 12 out of 25 gold
medals.

"We are still hopeful that our athletes will be able to steal
a victory," Rudi said