Sportsmanlike conduct
Sportsmanlike conduct
There was a surprise winner atop the medal standings at the
conclusion of the 23rd Southeast Asian (SEA) Games on Monday in
the Philippines.
The host nation, whose best previous results were two runner-
up finishes, emerged the runaway winner, overcoming the regional
powerhouse Thailand.
The medals race in the biennial event has no official weight,
but it is eagerly followed by all 10 participating nations to see
how they measure up against their neighbors in the region. And it
is the glitter of gold that matters the most in earning bragging
rights.
Perhaps the biggest shock of all, more significant than the
Philippines triumphing on the back of home crowd support and amid
allegations of biased judging, was Indonesia finishing fifth in
the gold medal total.
It is a humbling, humiliating comedown that would have been
unimaginable only a decade ago for the nine-time overall winner.
Indonesia, a third-place finisher in Vietnam two years ago,
had already conceded defeat before the Games began when sports
officials announced their target was second place, behind
Thailand.
Although there were some standouts at the Games, such as
karate, cycling, tennis and badminton, it is clear that national
sports are in a precarious position. Our athletes are still a
class or two above the region's also-rans of Cambodia and Laos,
but they are finding it hard to keep apace with the current
leaders, especially Thailand and Vietnam.
How the mighty have fallen.
A subdued National Sports Council (KONI) chairman Gen. (ret)
Agum Gumelar apologized on Sunday in Manila to the government,
sports community and public for the poor showing, and conceded
that it was "below our expectations".
He also promised a full evaluation of the team's performance
once the contingent returned to Jakarta.
The apology is duly accepted, along with the hope that KONI
will indeed conduct a thorough and impartial evaluation of what
went wrong.
Indonesia's sports decline did not happen overnight, as we
mentioned in our editorial on the eve of the Games opening. It
took years of complacency, of a lack of vision and of half-baked
plans for the country's inexorable slide from the top.
The warning signs were there in 1995 in Chiang Mai, when
Indonesia, for only the second time in 10 SEA Games, finished
second behind the hosts. Although Indonesia won in its own
backyard two years later, in Brunei Darussalam in 1999 it ended
up in third place -- its worst finish since it began
participating in the Games in 1977.
Since then we have become accustomed to defeat, as well as the
parade of excuses about lack of funds, poor preparation and the
difficulty in finding new talent (not to mention the old standby
of the cheating host).
That was until Manila, which has proven to be the country's
worst ever finish. It is time to change the losing game plan, and
put into place a comprehensive, thorough long-term program to put
national sports back on the right track.
It will also take finding and putting the most competent
people in the right place, and letting go those who have failed
to do their job either through incompetence or inertia.
Agum said on Sunday he did not want finger pointing at those
considered responsible for the failure.
"If there is anybody who should take the blame, it's me," he
said.
Those are strong and brave words indeed, only to be expected
from a retired Army general (in contrast, State Minister of Youth
and Sport Affairs Adhyaksa Dault has been conspicuously silent).
And we do expect Agum, as the leader of the country's national
sports organization, to take responsibility for the resounding
failure of the past week by stepping down from his position.
It's not enough to use the empty, self-serving bravado of not
wanting to leave a sinking ship -- this vessel went down long
ago. National sports is now in need of a major salvage operation,
a radical overhaul which will recapture the glorious, golden days
of the past.
It is time for Agum to do the honorable thing by resigning
from his post, for the sake of national sports. It is the
sportsmanlike thing to do.