Shooter Sarmunah aims high
JAKARTA (JP): The Indonesian women's shooters team is faced with a tough challenge to maintain its dominancy in the 20th Southeast Asian (SEA) Games in Brunei Darussalam.
The team of Sarmunah, Titin Indarwati and Rina Dwi Kusumaningtyas must continue that dominancy with a lower target set by the Indonesian Shooting and Hunting Association (Perbakin) by winning two silvers.
In the 1995 Games and 1997 Games, Indonesian shooters comprising Sarmunah, Supadmi and Sylvia Silimang grabbed the gold in the women's double trap and women's trap.
Sarmunah could be said to be the most experienced member of the trio as she has competed in international events since the early 1990s.
She skipped the 1997 Games due to the birth of her first child. But now Perbakin has called her to join the training center as the backbone of the national team in the biennial event, to be held from Aug. 7 to Aug. 15.
Sarmunah was born in Surabaya on May 26, 1968. The Brawijaya Military Command chief sergeant is focusing her attention on the double trap as Perbakin intensifies the event's development at the Indonesian Military's Shooting Training Center in Cilodong, Bogor.
Her other achievements are a silver medal in the 1995 Asian Clay shooting competition in Chengdu, China, and a bronze in the 1995 Asian Championships here.
She finished fifth in the 1995 World Championships in Chiba, Japan, and was fourth in the 1998 Asian Games in Bangkok.
The odd thing is that Sarmunah never competes in national events, as Perbakin never features this event in the National Games or the National Shooting Championships because not all provinces have double trap athletes.
As the most experience shooter on the team, Sarmunah sees the Games as the perfect moment to make a comeback.
"I want to prove that I am still able to win a gold medal for Indonesia," she said.
The first of four children, Sarmunah loves to eat East Javanese traditional food such as rujak cingur (spicy vegetable and fruit salad) and tahu campur (fried tofu salad).
"I have searched all over Jakarta but I have never found any restaurant or food court serving tahu campur. I'd die to get this food," she said. (yan)