South Sumatra wins first gold medal as PON opens
The Jakarta Post, Palembang
Host South Sumatera grabbed its first gold medal at the National Games (PON)'s while Jakarta stayed on the top of standings on the eve of the opening ceremony of the National Games at the Sriwijaya Stadium here on Thursday.
Bido Angkasa and Taqwa earned the hosts their first gold medal after they scored the highest points in the men's team's precision landing of the paragliding competition at the Sekayu airport, 126 west of the town.
Bido and Taqwa scored a total of 3754.661 points, followed by Jakarta's Darmansyah and Eddy Hartono with a combined 3681.206 points and Rusyanto and Suparno of East Java 2778.596 points.
In the individual event, Bido only managed to grab a silver medal with 1953.121 points. The gold went to Central Java's Hawari who scored 1956.956 points.
Darmansyah Sahurera of Jakarta seized a bronze with 1950.451 points.
The last gold in the paragliding will be on offer in the duration flight on Friday.
Vera Haryanto collected a gold medal for Jakarta after clocking the best time of 21.40 seconds in the women's 50-meter surface final of the fin-diving competition.
The victory left host diver Catrine Kalalo in disappointment. The local hopeful, who managed to set up a new national record with her 21.35 seconds en route to the final, clocked 21.46 seconds in the final to be content with a silver.
The bronze was grabbed by another Jakartan diver Stephanie Prima after she registered 22 seconds.
In the men's 50-meter apnea event, North Sumatra's Darwin grabbed a gold medal after clocking 16.61 seconds while East Java's Hendro Nyoto Mulyo got a silver after clocking 16.71 seconds. Kevin Angga of West Java grabbed a bronze with 17.04 seconds.
West Java ended the Thursday's competition with three gold medals. Hans Yosaputra won two in the 100-meter and 400-meter men's immersion events while Nadia Gozali grabbed the other in the 100-meter women's immersion.
With the additional gold, Jakarta remained at the top the medal table with an overall seven gold medals. West Java followed in second place with four gold medals.
Sixteen out of forty one sports being competed in the Games will start their competition on Friday.
Those sports are aerosports, aquatics, fencing, baseball, bowling, rowing, judo, shooting, archery, rock-climbing, pencak silat, sepak takraw, table tennis, boxing and wushu and tarung drajat, an Indonesian martial art, which makes its debut in the current Games.
However, the details as to which sports will already have offered medals were unavailable with members of the organizing committee tended to ping pong information seekers.
Several contact persons said they did not know what events would be held on the next day claiming that they had not received detail about information in question.