RI wall climbers hope for top tenth spot at Asiad
RI wall climbers hope for top tenth spot at Asiad
JAKARTA (JP): Five Indonesian wall climbers will fly for
Thailand today for the 1998 Asian X Games qualifier to be held
from April 22 to April 26 in Phuket.
Bondan Kartika, Ronald Mamarimbing, Nur Rosyid, Binsar
Nainggolan and Etha Hendrawati, the only woman on the team, will
compete in both the difficulty and speed categories.
The Phuket games will be Etha's third international trip. She
placed fourth in the 1996 Asian Wall Climbing Competition in
Singapore and took the silver medal in the Asian Wall Climbing
Championship in Iran last year.
Team manager Hendricus Mutter, who also chairs the Federation
of Indonesian Climbing Activities, said yesterday that his
athletes were confident of finishing in the top ten.
"We expect to secure at least third place behind our
archrivals Japan and South Korea," he said during a wall climbing
exhibition at Pondok Indah Mall in South Jakarta.
Only the top ten finishers in the Phuket competition will
qualify for the 1998 Summer X Games scheduled for June in San
Diego, California.
The Phuket qualifying event will feature extreme sports like
skate boarding, in-line skating, bicycle stunts, wake boarding
and sport climbing. It is the initial Asian competition in
radical sports.
About 200 athletes from various countries, including Thailand,
Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan, Singapore,
India, China, Australia and New Zealand, will be vying for places
in the Summer X Games.
Hendrikus admitted that it was difficult to develop wall
climbing here due to financial limitations.
"We badly need donors to enable us to send our athletes abroad
for international events," he said.
More and more young people have become interested in the sport
since it was introduced in 1989, he said. Some 3,000 people from
22 provinces have now joined the federation.
Imron Z.S., a National Sports Council executive who was
watching the exhibition yesterday, said the sport deserved an
entry in the 2002 National Games in Surabaya because the sports
council had officially recognized it. (cst)