Sub-par athletes may get the axe

Sub-par athletes may get the axe

Moch. N. Kurniawan, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Local track and field athletes vying to make the national team
for the 2005 Southeast Asian (SEA) Games face dismissal from the
national training program if they lose at the upcoming national
championships, according to the national track association's
boss.

The three-day championships begin at Madya stadium in Central
Jakarta on Thursday.

"If they (national training program athletes) lose, we will
find out why. If the losers can't come up with a good reason for
a bad performance, they will be dismissed from the national
team," the Athletics Association of Indonesia (PASI) chairman Bob
Hasan, said during a press conference here on Wednesday.

"The winners of the championship will take their places on the
team."

Some 400 athletes from 29 provincial chapters of PASI will
participate in the event. Gorontalo is the only chapter not
sending representatives.

Athletes will try to challenge the athletes that had earlier
been picked for the special training program such as women's
sprinter Deisy Sumigar and men's sprinter John Herman Murai.

John has recently won two legs of the 100-meter Asian Grand
Prix, but he will skip the short sprint and instead compete in
200.

The national championship features a total of 40 events this
year, down from 46 in previous years. The decathlon and
heptathlon are among the events that will not be done this year.

Bob explained that the removal of several events from the
national championship was because of a lack of participants in
those events.

The opening day of the championship will offer 13 gold medals.

The events are men's 5,000 meters, the men's discus throw,
men's shot put, men's 3,000-meter steeplechase, men's javelin
throw, women's triple jump, women's high jump, women's 3,000-
meter steeplechase, women's 10,000 meters, women's and men's 800
meters, women's and men's 200 meters.