Rivals pessimistic about RI target

Rivals pessimistic about RI target

JAKARTA (JP): Indonesia's aim of winning between 11 and 13
gold medals in track and field events at the upcoming 18th
Southeast Asian Games is unrealistic, according to Thai athletics
coach Suchart Jaesuraparp.

"I think it would be tremendously hard, if not impossible, for
your country to meet the target of six to seven gold medals,"
Suchart told The Jakarta Post.

"I think three or four gold medals would be realistic enough
for Indonesia," the 45-year-old coach commented. He added that
his athletes, competing before their home crowd, had set their
sights on harvesting between 12 and 14 golds during the Games.

Suchart was Thailand's team leader at the 11th Asian Track and
Field Championships which concluded on Sunday at the Madya
Senayan stadium here.

Indonesia came 14th in the championship, with two silver
medals, right behind Thailand, which collected two silver and
three bronze medals.

Despite the modest outcome, however, Pieter Noya, technical
director of the Indonesian Athletic Association, insisted that
his trainees would meet the target of winning 11 gold medals
during the SEA Games.

The Indonesian track and field team stormed the 17th Games two
years ago with a surprising haul of 13 golds, 11 silvers and
seven bronze medals, much better than Thailand's eight, 11 and
seven.

Suchart, the Thai national coach for the 100m, 200m and 4x100m
relay, said he was informed that chairman of the Indonesian
Athletic Association, Mohammad Hasan, had expected only six to
seven golds from his athletes.

However, the Indonesian National Sports Council announced
earlier this month that it thought 11 to 13 golds from track and
field in Chiang Mai was achievable.

Suchart, four-time SEA Games sprint champion in the 1970s,
said it would not even be easy for Indonesia to earn the top
honors in the women's 5,000m and 10,000m at the SEA Games, in
spite of middle- and long-distance runner Tri Asih Handayani, who
managed to grab two silvers from the two events in the recent
Asian track and field meet.

Suchart was not sure whether Handayani would be able to outrun
Myanmar's Pa Pa, who finished fifth at last year's Asian Games in
Hiroshima, behind two Chinese and two Japanese.

Myanmar also has another good long-distance runner, Khin Khin
Hwe, who also finished fifth at Hiroshima Asian Games behind two
Chinese and two Japanese runners, he added.

Singapore poses yet another threat. "We have a world-class
women's marathon runner. Her name is Ivone. She's a Briton
married to a Singaporean and now she is our citizen. In the
women's 10,000m she places around 10th in the world," Singapore's
team manager, Bay You Joea, told The Post.

"You also cannot hope for very much from your sprinters
because you rely only on Mardi Lestari. Remember, Malaysia has
very strong sprinters -- more than one," said Suchart, who works
in the letter-of-credit section of the Bangkok Bank.

He was referring to Malaysia's Nur Herman Majid, who finished
third behind China and Japan in the men's 110m hurdles; and Azmi
Ibrahim and Watson Nyambek, first and fourth semifinalists
respectively in the men's 100m dash at the recently concluded
Asian championships. (arf)