Old Faces At SEA Games 2017, Indonesian Athlete Regeneration Hampered
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JAKARTA, KOMPAS — Senior athletes were predicted to dominate the Indonesian contingent at SEA Games Kuala Lumpur 2017 in August. If there are young athletes, not all of them could play because of limited fund. This is not ideal because SEAG should also become a forum to prepare young athletes.
Kompas Team observed the training centers for lightweight, boxing, archery, swimming, athletics and badminton held in several places on the last week of April and first week of May 2017. The observation showed majority of them relied on senior athletes. Only badminton prepared the second tier athletes.
At the lightweight training center in Soreang, Bandung regency, West Java, there was the fact that the regeneration of male athletes was slow. Most of the athletes were 25 years old and only two were 24 years old, namely Muhammad Hasbi and Imam Jamaludin.
“The regeneration of male athletes was late because we’re all complacent with the achievement of the senior athletes. On the other side, the unavailability of fund for Satlak Prima [gold-targeting program] for the training center also hampered regeneration,” said Alamsyah, manager of the lightweight team.
Alamsyah said the late regeneration would make the achievement of the lightweight predictably drop after the Tokyo Olympics 2020. By that time, majority of athletes would be in their 30 years old age and many would retire.
The boxing training center at Icuk Sugiarto Stadium in Sukabumi was also dominated by senior boxers. Of 10 boxers, only two of them aged 19-20, namely Brandon J Haurissa and Sarohatua Lumban Tobing. The rest was older than 22 years old. The two most senior boxers were Kornelis Kwangu Langu and Ferdi Kase, aged 27 years old. Other boxers are Aldoms Suguro, Farrand Papendang and Bram Betaubun. Another is Simon Makarawe who gets into the top six during the Asia championship in Uzbekistan.
Indonesian Boxing Association chairman Johni Asadoma said the training center still relied on boxers who potentially grab medals in SEA Games, Asian Games and Olympics. The boxing training could not send junior athletes to the SEA Games because it does not have young squad. “We are lack of junior athletes because there is no talent scouting in the regions who could draw the interest of teenagers to choose sports,” Johni said.
Some are Olympian
The archery training was also dominated by elite athletes. From 12 names to contest for Malaysia games, four of them played at the Olympics, namely Ika Yuliana Rochmawati, 27; Riau Ega Agata Salsabila, 25; Hendra Purnama, 20, and M Hanif Wijaya, 20. Other athletes, such as Rona Siska Sari, 36, and Dellie Threesyadinda, 26, played for SEA Games.
Manager of Perpani archery for SEA Games 2017, Freddy Rosandi, said the archery submitted 21 names including some junior archers. “But only 11 got approval from Satlak Prima. This was deficit because we need at least 12 athletes. Finally, we got one addition, Prima Wisnu,” he said, denying opinions that the archery ignored athlete regeneration in the selection for SEA Games.
Syafrudin Mawi, compound archery trainer, said even though some of the athletes were not young anymore it did not mean they did not have the will to excel. He took an example of female archer from Jakarta, Rona Siska. Although she was 36 years old, she still continuously grab medals at SEA Games.
However, the archery accommodated some young archers, one of which was Prima Wisnu. The archer from Yogyakarta has never contested at SEA Games. Two years ago Prima joined the training center but was then cancelled prior to flying for Singapore 2015.
In swimming, the coach David Armandoni it was impossible to only send young swimmer because SEA Games was part of the parameters for Asian Games 2018. “I hope all athletes could perform at SEA Games. From there, I could get a glimpse of my squad and my rivals,” said the French coach.
Wita Witarsa, one of the athletic coaches, said even though there were many junior athletes during the long-distance run in Pangalengan, only the best athletes would be sent to contest SEAG because it would serve as parameters for the Asian Games 2018.
“Beside, the Satlak Prima also demands gold medals. That’s why we would see from the tryout if our athletes could perform better than the champions of the last SEA Games or not,” he said.
Badminton, which produced world champions, opted not to deploy all elite athletes for SEAG 2017. Moreover, SEAG 2017, on Aug. 19-30, will take place at the same time with World Championship in Glasgow, Scotland on Aug. 21-27.
Given such condition, chairwoman of Badminton development, Susi Susanti said her side would try to meet the three gold medals target at SEAG while at the same time also doing the regeneration.
Satlak Prima executive director Lukman Niode said the list of 400 athletes to contest in 36 of 38 sports at SEAG 2017 has been submitted to the Indonesian Olympic Committee. “Yet, I have not been able to project how many medal we could grab in SEA Games. Remember, we just submitted the long list, the athletes to be registered to get the accreditation from the host. The decision on which athletes would contest the SEA Games would depend on the results of try out. Beside, there are other factors such as injury that could change the medal projection,” Lukman said.
Lukman said the 400 names in the longlist were shortlisted from 597 athletes under the Program Indonesia Emas, gold-targeting program, as of April 2017.
Lukman added Satlak Prima was not a young athlete development program and did not focus on regeneration of athletes. The athletes regeneration program is fully the job of the executive board of the sport associations. “That’s why there is a tight criterion for athletes to join the Satlak Prima, at least they have the potential to grab silver or gold medals at SEA Games,” Lukman said.
Youth and Sports Minister Imam Nahrawi said SEAG 2017 was a stepping stone to a successful Asian Games 2018. Imam said at the moment the Satlak Prima was drafting a update on the latest condition of the athletes, including deciding on the promotion/degradation of the athletes. (ECA/IND/JON/OKI/ IYA/ROW/DNA)