Sat, 03 Jun 1995

Soeharto to open world archery meet

JAKARTA (JP): President Soeharto is expected to officially open the 38th World Archery Championships, the first event of its kind to be held in Indonesia, on Aug. 1.

"The president has confirmed his willingness to open the tournament and let the organizers use his name for the championships trophy," chairman of the Indonesian Archery Association, Oetojo Oesman, said yesterday.

Soeharto also agreed to serve as the patron of the committee of the Aug. 1-6 championships which have been included on the sports agenda marking the country's golden year celebration.

Oetojo, who is also the Minister of Justice, said that the national archery governing body has set a major target of winning as many Olympic berths as possible during the one-week event.

A total of 352 men's and women's archers from 41 countries will be vying in the Jakarta world event for 108 tickets for the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta. The Olympics next year will field 180 competitors.

The race for the remaining Olympic spots will continue in other tournaments abroad. The world archery body, FITA, will also award 18 wild card entries to certain countries.

Oetojo said Indonesian women's athletes seem to have a better chance of making appearances in Atlanta than their male counterparts. "We are focusing on short-distance events," Oetojo said.

Nurfitriyana and Purnama Pandiangan, members of the national trio team which earned Indonesia its first Olympic silver in 1986, line up the national team made up of 10 men's and 10 women's archers for the world meet.

They will have their last testing ground in the national championships to be held here from June 13 through 18. Australia and China will take part in the national event in order to get used to the venue.

The world championships will for the first time contest the compound event in addition to the traditional, manual recurving event. "We don't expect too much from this new event," said Oetojo.

The new event requires archers to use mechanical tools which enable the arrow to move twice as fast and to reach speeds of up to 300 feet per second.

Oetojo said the organizing committee desperately needs to raise funds through sponsorships. "We hope to collect between 60 and 70 percent of the estimated budget of Rp 2 billion (US$900,000) from private companies," he said.

He added that the organizers have so far managed only to gain one third of the estimated budget.

"We probably wasted some weeks when we conducted the election of our new top officials recently," Oetojo said. He promised, however, to complete the fund raising program on time.

A two-day FITA congress will follow the world championships, with the congressmen electing some of FITA leadership board members. (amd)