Sports bodies told not to give up hope over Asiad
JAKARTA (JP): The National Sports Council's vice chairman, Arie Sudewo, urged sports organizations which were not chosen to compete in the 13th Asian Games not to give up hope.
"Those organizations must take the refusal as a challenge to encourage their athletes and motivate them to perform better during the 10-month supervision period," Arie said yesterday.
The council's task force has announced 22 sports will represent the country at the Asiad in Bangkok next December.
They are track and field, badminton, boxing, canoeing, cycling, equestrian, fencing, soccer, gymnastics, judo, karate, rowing, sepak takraw, shooting, swimming, tae kwon do, tennis, volleyball, weight lifting, wrestling, wushu and yachting.
"If the athletes from the rejected sports can show any progress in 10 months, the council will consider including them in the national squad," said Arie, who is the patron of the council's task force.
The appointed sports organizations have to stage and finance their 10-month training before the council takes over three months prior to the start of the Games.
The Indonesian Archery Association and the Indonesian Bowling Association had expressed disappointment at the announcement.
"They have the right to be disappointed. But I think they must be rational and treat the refusal as a challenge," Arie said.
Separately, the council's athletes development deputy, Mohammad Hindarto, said that the archery association did not describe its target and program in the proposal submitted to the task force.
"In the 19th SEA Games, our male archers won a gold but the association wants its female archers to compete at the Asiad. This is irrelevant. We must consider our rivals at the event," said Hindarto, who is the task force chairman.
"Our athletes won't be able to match South Korean and Chinese archers who are much better than ours. They still have mental problems during competitions and it's our coaches' job to enable them to deal with it," he said.
Hindarto said national archers' competition results have always been between 20 and 30 points different from their practice results.
"We chose the sports based on the results of the 19th SEA Games, their chances of winning medals in the Asiad, their long- term prospects in the 2000 Olympics and their training programs," he said.
Indonesia only won one gold and three silvers in the 19th SEA Games archery competition here in October.
Equestrian
Hindarto said equestrian was chosen as a potential sport because its athletes had shown good form in the Southeast Asian Show Jumping league recently.
"Frankly they have suggested they could compete at both dressage and show jumping but we only chose show jumping because our athletes perform better at that than at dressage," he said.
"They are in top position in the league and they deserve a chance to compete at the Asiad. Moreover, the International Equestrian Federation allows participating countries to bring their own horses," he said.
Indonesia did not stage equestrian in the SEA Games and only won one silver and one bronze in the 1995 Games in Chiang Mai, Thailand.
Hindarto said soccer was chosen due to the national team's improving form.
"Their statistics are improving and we don't want the number one public sport's form to worsen again. The team deserves a second chance," he said.
Indonesia failed to reach the final in the 1995 Games and failed to win the Games gold this year after losing to Thailand in a penalty shoot-out. (yan)