Weightlifting body to hire foreign coach
JAKARTA (JP): Following the women's weightlifters success in winning medals in the 2000 Olympic Games, the Indonesian Weightlifting, Powerlifting and Bodybuilding Association (PABBSI) aims to improve their capabilities by hiring a foreign coach.
PABBSI chairman, Dharma Surya, said Waldemar Bassanowsky of Poland, a sport psychologist and former weightlifter who broke the world record 30 times, was the primary candidate.
"He will come here for two or three months. He will visit our training centers in Lampung and Banjarmasin and observe other training camps in Java and other provinces," he said.
Dharma said PABBSI needed to provide qualified coaches to help improve local weightlifters' skills.
"Our coaches are less experienced. If we have good coaches, we can produce better athletes."
PABBSI opted to abort the long-term training program called Satria 1 in Lampung and Satria 2 in Banjarmasin and will prepare a new one.
"We stopped the program because since the National Games (PON) in June we don't have centralized training programs anymore. But we still maintain athletes in both training camps and there will be enough time to prepare them for the 2004 Olympics," he said.
Dharma also pledged to send the lifters to compete in various international tournaments to improve their competitiveness.
"Our lifters have never been to international tournaments in the past three years. The new officials have arranged a schedule of overseas competition. If we send them abroad now, they will gain more experience," said Dharma, who was elected chairman in a PABBSI national congress in June.
Women's weightlifter Lisa Rumbewas won the silver medal in the 48-kgs event while Sri Indriyani earned bronze and Winarni won bronze in the 53-kgs event.
PABBSI gave bonuses to the lifters. Lisa earned Rp 30 million (US$3,400) while Sri and Winarni pocketed Rp 20 million each. Coaches Lukman and Imron Rosadi received Rp 20 million each.
Dharma also urged the National Sports Council (KONI) and the Gelora Senayan Management Board (BPGS) to allow the lifters to train at the facility at Senayan Stadium's Gate 3.
"We trained at the Gate 3 facility from 1963 to 1995 but the place was closed down. We can't use the Gajah Sena training site in Gadog, Bogor, because businessman Muhammad 'Bob' Hasan has claimed the property was his and told us he would sell it."
In a related development, sprinter coach Pieter Noya admitted his athletes were not mentally prepared to meet world champions in the Olympics.
"They should take part in various competitions starting from PON, Southeast Asian (SEA) Games and Asian Games before competing in world events like the Olympics. They should compete more often in overseas competitions."
Pieter also expressed doubts over official time recording in PON. Men's sprinter Yanes Raubaba, Erwin Heru Susanto and John Murray clocked 10.13, 10.16 and 10.23 seconds respectively in the 100m dash to surpass the 'A' time standard for Olympics of 10.27.
"I doubt the accuracy of the time record. But it's hard to prove," he said on Monday. (ivy)