Yurita hopeful in buildup for 2003 SEA Games

Musthofid, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Despite the lack of training equipment, national hammer thrower Yurita Ariyani appears to have shown a formidable improvement in readiness for her participation in the upcoming Southeast Asian (SEA) Games in Vietnam this December.

"We have requested PASI (the Indonesian Amateur Athletics Association) since April to provide us with sets of spheres to be used for training," trainer Muksin said here on Thursday.

Muksin said the hammer throwing training camp, which consists of four athletes, should ideally use six spheres at four kilograms, plus four apiece at five and six kilograms.

Instead, the training is using only five four-kilogram and three five-kilogram spheres, plus a six-kilogram one.

Yurita Ariyani is one of four female hammer throwers to have joined the training regime. However, only Yurita and Pipit Yeti Wulandari are preparing for the SEA Games.

The other two -- Marini and Rosa Herlinda -- have adopted Senayan Madya stadium as their training venue.

Muksin said that the lack of equipment had resulted in inconvenience in the athletes' training as they would have to wait for one of them to finish a round before another took her turn.

However, Yurita, who feels comfortable with a three-spin throw instead of the unsuccessfully trialed four-spin throw, does not seem to be distracted. She chalked up a personal best of 51 meters during training, according to Muksin.

The mark has proved a significant improvement from her performance at the 2001 SEA Games in Kuala Lumpur, where she achieved 49.39 meters, to finish in second place behind Benchamas Ounkaw of Thailand, who reached 49.84 meters.

Yurita once tried a four-spin rotation before releasing the hammer, but it did not succeed because, as Muksin said, it would be liable to disqualification.

Muksin said that Yurita would be spurred further to scoring 54 meters, to secure the greatest chance of a gold medal in this year's SEA Games.

Muksin said he was optimistic about his training regime for the six months prior to the SEA Games.

"We have worked out a training scheme for Yurita to deal with, say, 50 percent of her load, before raising it to 70 percent in August and 100 percent in December," he said, adding that the training regime would be more focused on developing Yurita's strength.

As for Pipit, Muksin said that the 21-year-old, who threw 33 meters at the beginning of her training in March last year, had improved to 48 meters.