Establish Sports Blueprint for Olympic Glory

KOMPAS/HENDRA A SETYAWAN

Athletes are inaugurated as part of the Indonesian contingent that will compete in the 2018 Asian games, at Istora Gelora Bung Karno, in Jakarta, on Sunday. Team Indonesia will consist of 1,383 people at the Games, including 938 athletes, 365 officials and 80 support team members.

JAKARTA, KOMPAS – Indonesia’s plan of focusing on athletes’ training in Olympic sports after the 2018 Asian Games remains hampered by the lack of a comprehensive blueprint, which is only 70 percent complete so far. The country lags behind its neighbors in Olympic sports, so much so that it needs to rely on medals from non-Olympic sports to reach Asian Games glory.

“We do not want to be embarrassed in the Asian Games. In order to reach the Top 10, we need to rely on non-Olympic sports,” Youth and Sports Ministry secretary Gatot S Dewa Broto said on the sidelines of an event with Indonesia’s 2018 Asian Games athletes at the Istora Senayan sports stadium in Jakarta on Sunday (5/8/2018).

Gatot said that the nation’s reliance on non-Olympic sports would only be temporary. After the Asian Games, he said, the government would be more focused on developing Olympic sports. This is in line with Presidential Regulation No. 95/2017 on improving national sports achievements. The government will prioritize holding national training camps (pelatnas) for Olympic sports, especially those with gold medal potentials.

“[Many countries] are now relying on young athletes [in the 2018 Asian Games] in the hope of increasing their experience before the [2020 Tokyo] Olympics,” Gatot said.

The ministry’s deputy of national sports achievement improvement, Mulyana, said that Indonesia remained reliant on non-Olympic sports. However, in the future, he said that this would change.

“Now, we are finishing a blueprint for national sports development. Currently, [the document] is 70 percent finished. We hope to finish it this year,” Mulyana said.

“Through the blueprint, we will focus on developing Olympians, including by changing the system of the National Games [PON] into more Olympic-focused. We hope to prioritize younger athletes and hold more Olympic sports competitions,” he added.

Long-term development

Indonesia has the largest contingent of athletes in the 2018 Asian Games, comprising 1,383 individuals: 938 athletes, 365 officials and 80 headquarters. The host country will participate in 463 competitions in 67 disciplines in 40 sports. It targets to win between 16 and 20 gold medals in order to finish in the Top 10.

Of the targeted 20 golds, 14 are from non-Olympic sports, namely pencak silat, rock climbing, jetski, bridge, paragliding and wushu. Only six are from Olympic sports, namely badminton, weightlifting, rowing, taekwondo and canoeing. The Youth and Sports Ministry has no gold target in Olympic sports with dozens of contested medals, such as athletics, aquatics, gymnastics and cycling.

Executives of national associations of Olympic sports are dismayed by this fact. The country’s medal targets in both SEA Games and Asian Games often do not reflect the Games’ true essence as preparations for the Olympics. The government’s lack of seriousness is visible from the lack of continuity in its development of Olympic sports, despite many of these sports having contributed golds to the country. Consequently, Indonesia increasingly lags behind other countries.

For instance, athletes in the artistic, rhythmic and trampoline gymnastics will compete for 18 golds. The Indonesian Gymnastics Association (Persani), however, only targets one bronze. “If we want to be realistic, then it’s one bronze from either men’s or women’s artistic gymnastics. It’s still difficult for us to compete at Asia level, or even at Southeast Asia level,” Persani head of development and achievement Dian Arifin said.

Similarly, Indonesia only targets one gold in cycling, despite the 22 golds being contested in four disciplines: track, mountain biking, road race and BMX.

Indonesian national cycling team manager Budi Saputra said that long-term development would be necessary to dominate Asia. Unfortunately, the national cycling training camp lacks continuity. After the 2017 SEA Games, the training camp stopped for two months. As a result, many athletes need to retrain themselves all over again. “If we look at Malaysia, their track cyclist Azizulhasni Awang trained for 10 years non-stop in Melbourne, Australia. He was only achieving by the time he turned 30,” Budi said.

(DRI/KEL)