Indonesia to Focus on Elite-Level Sports Championships
The government will come up with a road map for athlete development to increase the country’s achievements in global sports competitions. This long-term program will be reinforced with an increased budget.
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JAKARTA, KOMPAS – The government will work to maintain the momentum of Indonesian sports resurgence following the successful 2018 Asian Games, including by establishing sustainable athlete development to prepare for the 2020 Olympics, the 2022 Asian Games, the 2024 Olympics and beyond. A multiyear athletics development fund will be established to prevent national training camps (pelatnas) from ceasing due to a lack of funding.
These were the topics of discussion in a 2018 Asian Games evaluation coordinating meeting at the Office of the Coordinating Human Development and Culture Minister in Jakarta on Monday (3/9/2018). Youth and Sports Ministry secretary Gatot S. Dewa Broto, Indonesian Asian Games chef de mission Syafruddin and Finance Ministry director of human development and culture budgeting Purwanto attended the meeting.
“We have asked all national sports associations and the National Sports Committee [KONI] to find new, potential athletes. They are the ones who know where to find strong athletes in certain sports,” Coordinating Human Development and Culture Minister Puan Maharani said after the meeting.
“This has begun, such as in basketball. The Youth and Sports Ministry and KONI will work together to find talented new athletes,” she said.
Puan reaffirmed that the development of superior young athletes required a lot of time. “A clear road map of sports development will be necessary, in which the development is focused not only on elite-level athletes,” she explained. “It is this development that we need to be doing right now. The Youth and Sports Ministry has allocated the budget and we have talked about this long before the 2018 Asian Games. With our good achievements at the Games, this [sports development] should be the government’s main priority.”
Based on 2018 Asian Games’ results, Puan said, the government had a road map of sports that had the potential to win gold at the 2020 Olympics and 2022 Asian Games and the names of potential athletes and whether it was possible for them to compete in the two multisport events.
“We will prioritize all achieving athletes. However, this does not mean that we will push aside non-achieving athletes. I have asked the Youth and Sports Ministry and KONI to monitor potential athletes through various tryouts,” Puan said.
‘Pelatnas’ continued
KONI deputy chair Suwarno, who attended the meeting, said that he hoped pelatnas would continue. “The hope is that, through continuous pelatnas, the athletes who won silver [in the 2018 Asian Games] will win gold in future competitions. If pelatnas are interrupted, it will be difficult to catch up,” he said.
Suwarno added that the government should be focused on developing athletes not only in prioritized sports but also in sports in which Indonesia had potential. “In athletics, for instance, we only have a few athletes in throwing and jumping. The sports are a priority, but we have to train more athletes in them,” he said.
Gatot also urged for a continuous pelatnas. Sports associations with development money that will run out in September have been urged to ask for more funding soon to avoid any interruptions to their pelatnas. “For next year, we ask sports associations to submit the funding proposals before November so that they can be processed immediately and the money can be disbursed in January,” he said.
According to Gatot, it is possible to prepare a multiyear sports development budget. The Finance Ministry has made this possible with certain prerequisites. “With the Presidential Regulation No. 95/2017 in place, athletes will receive their honorariums on time. We will continue this pattern with a better road map,” he said.
The Finance Ministry is currently waiting for a sports development budget proposal from the Youth and Sports Ministry. “The proposed budget is up to the Youth and Sports Ministry. However, we will prioritize sports with achievements. They will assess and we will look at how much money is available,” Purwanto said.
The budget for Olympic sports was not included in the budgeting for 2018 Asian Games pelatnas. Based on provisional achievements, examples of funding for non-Olympic sports were Rp 13 billion (US$876,740) for jet ski and Rp 7.7 billion for soft tennis. Meanwhile, Olympic sports such as athletics and gymnastics only received Rp 10.9 billion and Rp 7 billion, respectively.
Do not be arrogant
Sports observer Fritz Simandjuntak said that Indonesia had successfully organized the 2018 Asian Games, while public enthusiasm for the event was also sky-high. Infrastructure, both new and renovated, were well-received. The target of winning 16 to 20 golds was surpassed, for which athletes should be highly appreciated.
However, this may not necessarily mean a resurgence of national sports. “As host, Indonesia has often been arrogant but then fell hard in the following multisport events. Past examples include our achievements in the Southeast Asian [SEA] Games following the 1997 and 2011 SEA Games, which we hosted,” Fritz said.
After becoming the overall champion in 1997, with a total haul of 194 golds, 101 silvers and 115 bronzes, Indonesia only finished third in 1999 with 44 golds, 43 silvers and 58 bronzes.
Fritz said that, in the future, the government should prioritize Olympic sports, especially those with many golds in contention. Fritz said that a long-term pelatnas and international tournaments for elite-level athletes in sports such as badminton would be necessary.