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.