Indonesia's sports execs look past Asiad failure
17/12/2006 11:51
Indonesian Sport Minister Adhyaksa Dault said that Indonesia has no time
to play the blame game for its miserable showing at the 15th Asian Games.
Instead, it must focus on bouncing back at next year's Southeast Asian
Games.
"We have failed, we were defeated and we have to take the
responsibility for this big fiasco in the Asian Games," the minister
said.
"We are not looking for a scapegoat. It is urgent and important to
focus and boost the development of priority sports so that we can reach the top
three (nations) at the upcoming SEA Games in Thailand," he said.
Indonesia
finished fifth at last year's SEA Games in the Philippines. Based on this year
Asian Games medal tally, Indonesia is likely to finish sixth next
year.
Adhyaksa said a task force, comprising representatives from sports
associations, KONI and his office, would be established to oversee the national
training program.
Associations will be required submit their strategies with
detailed SEA Games targets in early January, he said.
Adhyaksa said President
Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono had told him to take immediate measures to catapult
Indonesia back into the regional top three.
Games team chef-de-mission Ahmad
Sutjipto said the National Sports Council (KONI) had set five major sports as
gold medal targets.
"They are beach volleyball, badminton, karate, bowling
and rowing," he said. "We let golds slip through our fingers in the sports in
Jakarta, and we don't want to make the same mistake next year."
From the five
sports, only badminton and bowling contributed a gold each to Indonesia's medal
collection in Doha.
With three silvers and 15 bronzes, Indonesia was ranked
at 22, far below overall champion China with 165 golds, 88 silvers and 63
bronzes.
But, sports observer Mangombar Ferdinand Siregar said Indonesia
should focus on three Olympics events, namely athletics, swimming and
gymnastics.
"These three sports are the real gold mines. Without them, we
won't be able to take home as many golds. Our mistake at the Asian Games was not
sending any athletes in those three sports," he said in Jakarta.
Siregar said
KONI should field a greener team at next year's SEA Games and let the nation's
world-class athletes focus their preparations on the 2008 Olympic Games in
Beijing.
Xinhua News
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