Women's tennis team gives first gold

Novan Iman Santosa, The Jakarta Post, Busan, South Korea

After a six-day wait, the grand Indonesia Raya national anthem was finally played and the much-honored red-and-white flag was hoisted to herald the first gold medal win at the Busan 2002 Asian Games.

The women's team tennis players gave Indonesia its first gold medal after defeating Japan 2-1 in an exciting, entertaining and tough match at the Geumjeon Tennis Stadium in the Geumjeong Sports Complex on Saturday evening. The three matches started around noon and finished at about 8 p.m., with a half-hour intermission between the second and deciding matches.

Meanwhile, cyclist Uyun Muzizah contributed her second silver medal in the women's 3,000-meter individual pursuit at the nearby Geumjeong Velodrome.

The Indonesian men's team tennis players contributed a bronze medal after being defeated by host South Korea.

The first gold medal for Indonesia in this 14th Asiad was decided during the third match with the Indonesian doubles of Angelique Widjaja and Wynne Adiati Prakusya playing against Miho Saeki and Saori Obata.

Indonesia and Japan were tied 1-1 after the two singles matches.

In the first match, Indonesia's second singles Wynne surrendered to Miho Saeki 6-7 (4-7), 7-5, 2-6.

But Angie, as Angelique is more popularly known, managed to save the Indonesian team by defeating Saori Obata 7-5, 6-4 in the second match.

Later in the evening, Wynne and Angie teamed up to beat the Japanese under Busan's bright stars and overwhelming support from the Indonesian contingent, including a group of Indonesian workers.

"I am very proud that the national anthem is being played here at last. We have accomplished our first task," Angie told reporters after the match.

"We still have two gold medals to take. I hope I can grab more gold medals," she added.

Meanwhile, Wynne said she was relieved that she could contribute a gold medal despite her loss in the first match.

"This is a team event so I'll just do my best in the doubles match and forget about my defeat.

"It worked out well. The most important thing is that we have contributed a gold medal," she said.

Angie and Wynne were accompanied at the podium by two other team members, Lisa Andriyani and Wukirasih Sawondari, to receive the gold medals from the chairman of the National Sports Council (KONI), Wismoyo Arismunandar.

"I hope this will be a good start for the Indonesian contingent to get more gold medals," said Wismoyo.

The first gold medal, however, is not enough to fulfill KONI's own target of "reaching a better result than the Bangkok Asiad". The Indonesian contingent reaped six gold medals in Bangkok's 1998 Asiad.

President Megawati Soekarnoputri asked for a more ambitious yield of 15 gold medals, which some sports observers considered as "quite impossible".

Earlier in the morning, the Indonesian men's team of Suwandi and Peter Handoyo was outclassed by hosts Lee Hyung-taik and Yoon Yong-il in their semifinals match.

Second singles Peter was defeated by Yoon 3-6, 0-6, while the seasoned Lee outbested Suwandi 6-1, 6-4.

South Korea will go on to meet Japan, who defeated Uzbekistan 2-0. Michihisa Onoda beat Vadim Kutsenko 7-6 (7-5), 4-6, 7-5 while Takahiro Terachi gunned down Oleg Ogorodov 1-6, 6-3, 6-0.

In the velodrome, Uyun grabbed her second silver medal after clocking 3:47.489.

Chinese cyclist Zhao Haijuan won a gold and set a new Games and Asian record of 3:46.523. The old record was held by another Chinese cyclist, Wang Qingzhi, who clocked 3:46.752 in the Hiroshima 1994 Asiad.

Uyun's first silver medal was acquired on Wednesday at the women's individual road race event in Busan's northern district of Gijang.

"What else can I say. I am happy and proud that I could contribute another silver medal," said Uyun after the race.

"But deep inside I am really disappointed that I could not give a gold medal to my country."

Indonesian chef-de-mission Rudolf S. Warouw, however, said Uyun's silver medal was an achievement for the women's cyclists.

"This is the first Asiad silver medal for our women's track cyclists. We could only secure bronze medals in the previous track events," he said.