Men’s doubles badminton players Mohammad Ahsan (right) and Kevin Sanjaya Sukamulyo practice at the Cipayung national training camp in East Jakarta om Friday (29/9). The facility continues to help prepare shuttlers for the 2018 Asian Games. Meanwhile, other sports have not started their Asian Games training because of financial restrictions.
JAKARTA, KOMPAS – The test event of the 2018 Asian Games, which will be held on Feb. 10-18 next year, will test the capacity of the Indonesian Asian Games Organizing Committee (Inasgoc) in staging the Asian multi-sport event. Inasgoc had failed twice before to hold test events as requested and scheduled by the Olympic Council of Asia (OCA).
Like other previous hosts of the Asian Games, Indonesia is obligated to host the Asian Youth Games 2017, which is to see the participation of the 45 countries that will compete in the 2018 Asian Games. The Youth Games has the same level of complexity as the Asian Games.
“However, due to financial restrictions, Indonesia will not be staging the Asian Youth Games. That itself has saved the total cost of hosting the Asian Games by Rp 600 billion (US$45 million). The Olympic Council of Asia eventually ordered Indonesia to replace the test event with a competition consisting of 10 Asian Games 2018 events,” said Inasgoc head Erick Tohir at a Teras Kita dialogue titled “The Spirit Leading to the Asian Games 2018” in Jakarta, Tuesday (19/9).
The 10 events that will be in the test competition are archery, badminton, 5x5 basketball, boxing, football, silat, taekwondo, track and field, volleyball and weightlifting. Inasgoc and the OCA have agreed that the test event will be held in October or November 2017 and must use the venues that will be used for the Asian Games.
The agreement had also been discussed at a meeting of technical delegates on March 4, which presented every aspect of the competition and matches in detail.
However, Inasgoc later said that it would not be able to stage the test event this year because construction of some of the venues had not been completed on time. Fortunately, the OCA agreed for the test event to be postponed to Feb. 10-18, 2018. That is why Inasgoc must not fail again this time.
Inasgoc secretary-general Eris Herryanto said that the test event would be like the Asian Games, but only feature 10 events. The Asian Games that will be held on Aug. 18-Sept. 2, 2018, will consist of 40 sport events.
“Even though its scale is 10 events, the test event in February will test all aspects of staging the Asian Games. Starting from the technical aspects in the competition and match arenas to the facilities provided to the athletes taking part in the competition,” Eris said on Friday (29/9) in Jakarta.
The test event expects the participation of 1,048 match officials, match supervisors, organizing committee members, and sports federation delegates. Meanwhile, 1,991 athletes and 487 officials from several countries have also been invited to play and compete in the event.
Up to 2,000 volunteers will also have their abilities put to the test, such as carrying out VVIP guest protocols and communicating issues faced by the athletes and officials under their charge, and working on the ground at the arenas.
Inasgoc’s ability will be tested starting from the moment they pick up all 1,991 athletes and 487 officials. At the Kemayoran Athletes Residence, Inasgoc will be tested on all aspects of organization, such as comfort, food and beverage, security and facilitating the athletes in keeping with the match schedule at six locations.
“We are ready to test the sporting aspect in the competition and match arenas. Inasgoc Deputy 3 will be the one handling transportation and has started setting up a traffic engineering simulation. However, we at the Inasgoc secretariat have not received reports on the results of the simulation,” Eris said.
According to Dwi Nugroho, the chief director of the Kemayoran Area Management Center, the travel time for the participants’ buses from the Kemayoran Athletes Residence to the Gelora Bung Karno (GBK) complex would take 30-45 minutes with the help of a motorcade escort.
Inasgoc’s Vice Deputy I for Sports, Djoko Pramono, said the quality standards for the test event were exactly the same as that for the Asian Games. “Before the test event, all members of the organizing committee will take part in a workshop and put the results of the workshop into practice. So, the management aspect will also be successful. The same goes for the application of federation rules to every sport event at the Asian level,” he said.
Public Works and Public Housing Minister Basuki Hadimuljono said that the renovation of all the arenas in the GBK area would finish in December at the latest. The Velodrom, which was originally scheduled to be completed by June 2018, is now planned to be completed by April 2018. “All the arenas that will finish in December will be ready to be tested in February,” he said.
