Slowly but surely, search goes on for athletic talent

Moch. N. Kurniawan, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

It's still early days in the campaign of the Indonesian Athletics Association (PASI) to scour the country for the best young talent aged between 14 and 16 years.

After two years, the program has produced one competitive athlete, although others are in training.

PASI chairman Bob Hasan said the athletes, chosen based on a minimum height requirement of 170 centimeters for boys and 160 cms for girls, were undergoing basic training based on developing their athletic potential.

"We want all the new talent to master the 60-meter dash because it is the basis of all sports events in athletics," he told reporters last week.

"After they are good enough in the 60-meter dash, we could provide specialization for them."

The program answers some of the criticism of the association for allegedly letting the country's athletic prestige slide. Hans-Peter Thumm, a German consultant in athletics for two years here, has said PASI lacks a clear strategy to nurture new talent in the country.

PASI development deputy head Paulus Lei said the talent scouting program had been conducted in 20 provinces across the country, including Aceh, Papua, Jakarta and West Java.

Various problems have prevented the program from being implemented in North Sulawesi, Central Sulawesi, East Kalimantan, West Kalimantan, North Maluku, Maluku and Central Java.

"Last year, we held an event to seek new talent. This year, we will hold the same event in July," he said.

Under the program, an evaluation is conducted every three months.

However, it was still difficult to monitor the progress of the talent scouting program because only a few of the association's chapters have provided reports, he said.

"We have difficulty to make trainers more disciplined to report the development to us," he said.

"Just five provinces, like Papua and Bengkulu, have given their progress report on the athletes."

The one athlete who has been produced is Zainuddin Umar of Maluku, a javelin thrower who has started participating in regional competitions such as the Arafura Games.

Bob said the association believed it was better to find and groom athletes for competition instead of waiting for the emergence of highly motivated "self-starters", such as sprinters Poernomo in the 1980s and Mardi Lestari in the 1990s.

Under the talent scouting program, a province is obliged to train five talented young male and female athletes, with each athlete receiving a Rp 300,000 (US$31.5) stipend per month and two trainers receiving Rp 500,000 per month each.

Bob said the results of the program would only be clear in 10 to 15 years.

After dominating athletics competition in the Southeast Asia (SEA) Games in the 1990s, Indonesia has experienced declining performance in the past few years due to a lack of athletic development, especially in seeking new talent.

In the 2003 SEA Games, Indonesia brought home four golds, while in the 2005 SEA Games, PASI hoped to win six golds.

The six golds are expected from 110 meters men's hurdler Edi Zakaria, men's pole vaulter Nunung Jayadi, women's marathon runner Feri Marince Subnafeu, the javelin throw in the men's division, the hammer throw in the women's division and the men's 800 meters through Ahmad Sakeh, who is currently training in Germany.