TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - All eyes in Asia are looking at the Asian Games XVIII commencing in Jakarta and Palembang. Despite having to put in much effort and expend huge costs, we can be proud for being able to pull off hosting such a prestigious event. Yet, the entire exertion of hosting will be to no avail if Indonesia cannot wrest athletic achievement or at the very least use the momentum to boost the country’s prowess in sports.
Achievements marked by obtaining gold medals are important because they will be imprinted in our collective memory for all time. The effect of the Asian Games event against national progress is calculable. The sporting celebration which swallowed up more than Rp40 trillion will be easily forgotten by the individual. The grandeur of the opening ceremony of the Games participated in by 45 National Olympic Committees will be momentary. The melody of Reach to the Stars sung by Via Vallen will disappear from memory as soon as the party’s over.
Let us learn a precious lesson from the Asian Games IV held in 1962 in Jakarta. Indonesia then had attained double triumph: accomplishment as a successful host who also managed to pull off a brilliant performance. We were second only to Japan, the overall champion. Yet the splendid achievement did not last long. At the Asian Games V in Bangkok in 1966, we could only muster seventh place. Four years later at the Asian Games VI in the same location, we had slipped even further to ninth spot.
At the 1962 Asian Games held during the era of President Sukarno, Mohamad Sarengat and his colleagues were awe-inspiring. They wrested 21 gold, 26 silver, and 30 bronze medals. Our contingent quarried gold medals from badminton, the sprint event, cycling, and platform diving. Sarengat’s name reached the stratosphere for being the fastest person in Asia. He wrested gold for the 100 meter sprint and the 110 meter hurdle.
The man who hailed from Banyumas, Central Java, only needed 10,5 seconds to complete the 100 meters-a record that remained uncontested for 22 years. After the stupendous achievement, Sarengat’s career continued to go sky high. He pursued an education and became a doctor. He was the personal doctor of Indonesia’s vice president, and was a member of Indonesia’s Consultative Assembly, the highest body in the land. Sarengat died at the age of 74 in 2014, and his name has been memorialized in the stadium in Banyumas.
Sarengat and his chums’ performances have never been replicated. After the 1962 Asian Games, our sports endured huge setbacks in direct correlation to the economic and political turbulence the country fell in. A mere three years after conducting the grandiose event, Sukarno’s regime toppled. It was as if the endeavor for national progress in every field, including the cultivation of sports, had to start from zero all over again with the beginning of the New Order. To this day, Indonesia lags far behind in sporting achievements. In every Asian Games, on average we only manage to rake in no more than eight gold medals. This is why our target to attain a spot in the Top 10 in this Asian Games feels far-fetched. At such a target, our athletes are compelled to get 16 to 20 golds. To chase after that mission, the government included non-Olympic sporting events, including bridge, para-sailing, and pencak silat martial arts. Triumph in non-measurable events is relatively easy to attain because it depends on the jury’s call. The sticky point is, if the jury sides too much with the event’s host, we can be the object of ridicule by other nations.
The government should not have fallen prey to the effort of bolstering up our sporting accomplishments too instantaneously. Olympiad sport events need to be prioritized. Even if we fail in the 2018 Asian Games, it will be fodder for evaluation to put in order our systems and management. The time is ripe for this nation to put together a development strategy for our sports. We should not be too ambitious to make headway in all the events. Many nations already only focus on the branches they excel in and which are competitive in the international arena, particularly the Olympics.
The introduction of sports, particularly to school-aged children, should be part and parcel of the curriculum. Even in this, we lag far behind. Students face hurdles if they want to train because their schools lack the necessary sports facilities. Is it any wonder that inter-school competitions can hardly get off the ground? A 2013 UNESCO study showed that sports as a subject in our middle school curricula on average gets a mere 85 minutes a week. Compare this to China and Japan, where students get more than 130 minutes of sports every week.
The government may hold the Asian Games celebration with a lot of razzle-dazzle. But when all is said and done, let’s not repeat the mistakes of our past: namely forgetting to develop and cultivate our sports. Without continuous fostering of sports, we will be incapable of continuing from where Sarengat and colleagues left off.
