Swimmer takes PON opening-day laurels
Swimmer takes PON opening-day laurels
JAKARTA (JP): The 14th National Games (PON) swung into full
action yesterday but failed to reach full speed as only two
national records fell.
It was a flat opening for the sporting event which is billed
as the platform from which the country's athletes spring toward
better performances at international events. However 10 meet
records were broken, two in swimming and eight in weight lifting.
Catherine Surya stole the limelight. Arising from the ashes of
the country's biggest doping scandal, which cost her the eight
gold medals she won in the last Games three years ago, Catherine
returned to the podium in style with two golds for West Java.
She splashed to the 200-meter butterfly gold medal in a new
national best of two minutes and 16.14 seconds, destroying West
Sumatran Olga Halim's two-year-old mark by 2.42 seconds.
Catherine, who trained in Australia in preparation for the
Games, grabbed her second top honor in the 50m freestyle, but her
time of 27.80 was 30 hundredths of a second slower than the
national record held by Elsa Manora Nasution of Jambi.
National record
Earlier yesterday morning Lampung's female lifter Winarni
became the first athlete to set a national record. She improved
Supeni's national record of 105kgs in the clean and jerk category
by half a kilogram to win the women's 50kg division.
Yogyakarta's female cyclist Nurhayati, who won the 20km
Individual Time Trial, was the first athlete to mount the top
step of the podium. The winner of two gold medals in the
Southeast Asian Games in Thailand last December struck the maiden
gold of this sporting event in 29 minutes and 38.95 seconds.
Success in the Karate competition ensured the host Jakarta
took a slender lead at the top of the medal standings after the
first day of competition yesterday. The Japanese martial art gave
Jakarta three out of five gold medals on offer.
The medal tally highlights the dominance of Javanese teams,
with the overall defending champion leading with six golds, seven
silvers and four bronzes, in front of West Java with four golds,
four silvers and eight bronzes.
A soccer row tarnished the Games yesterday when a security
officer beat Acehnese goalkeeper Zulkarnaen while he was leading
his team to lodge a protest over the marching orders given to
teammate Salman in their preliminary round match against Central
Java.
Zulkarnaen suffered serious injuries to his leg after the
incident that caused a 10-minute interruption to the match won by
Central Java 1-0. Sugi Utomo scored the winner five minutes into
the match.
Aceh's deputy chief of the mission, Zainuddin Hamid, quickly
wrote a letter to the PON organizing committee, protesting the
"brutal treatment" meted out to his side.
Track and field, the sport with the most gold medals, will
begin today at the Madya Senayan stadium, with six of the 44
golds up for grabs on the opening day of competition.
Medal tally (after the first day of competition):
G S B
Jakarta 6 7 4
West Java 5 4 8
East Java 3 2 0
Central Java 2 1 3
Lampung 2 1 3
S. Sulawesi 1 3 3
Yogyakarta 1 1 1
Jambi 1 2 0
S. Kalimantan 1 1 1
Irian Jaya 1 0 0
N. Sumatra 0 1 2
Bali 0 0 1
E. Kalimantan 0 0 1
Riau 0 0 1
W. Sumatra 0 0 1
W. Kalimantan 0 0 1