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.