Sub-par athletes given second chance

Eva C. Komandjaja, Jakarta

Four karate hopefuls, who turned in sub-par performances at the last week's local competition, will still be given an opportunity to improve under the "Indonesia Awakens" (IA) sports development program.

Donny Dharmawan, Syarif, Puspa Meonk and Kartika each failed to win a gold medal in their respective categories at the three- day Maesa Cup, which ended on Sunday, but Maxi Pauran, head of the competition, said that the results could not be used as a parameter of their "real ability".

The four are among 85 athletes, from 11 sports, currently undergoing focused training under the IA program, a three-year sports program launched by the National Sports Committee (KONI) with a goal to win 10 gold medals at the 2006 Asian Games in Qatar.

The program also includes 35 coaches. The other 10 sports are archery, track and field, badminton, beach volleyball, chess, cycling, sailing, tae kwon do, tennis and weightlifting.

For the karate athletes, the weekend's Maesa Cup was supposed to be a kind of assessment tournament, where they were meant to show that they deserved a place in the program.

Donny took bronze after he was defeated by Nur Fajar, a former national athlete, in the semifinal, while Puspa lost to Dominggas of Papua in the final round.

Kartika lost to another Papuan athlete, Meri in the semifinal, while the 18-year-old Syarif, who won a silver medal at last year's World Karate Championships in France, failed to win any hardware.

"Although they all lost, none of them suffered a bad defeat. They went out only by one or two points," Maxi said.

KONI's chief in charge of development affairs Djoko Pramono said that the training program had been running for only a month and that it would be unfair to judge their performance only from this event.

Djoko also said that their opponents could have had extra motivation from being offered a reward of Rp 3 million (US$353) by the national karate-do association (Forki) chairman Luhut Panjaitan, if they defeated the IA members.

Separately, Djoko announced that pole vaulter Ni Putu Desi would be excluded from IA program, but Djoko said he could not give the reason, pending an announcement by the Indonesian Track and Field Association (PASI).

Desi vaulted to a gold medal at the 2003 Southeast Asian (SEA) Games in Vietnam with a personal record 3.95 meters (12 feet, 11 7/8 inches).