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