TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - The first 2018 Asian Games test event was held at the Gelora Bung Karno basketball hall on Thursday, February 8. It saw Indonesia’s basketball team defeat Timor Leste’s national team at 135-30.
Timor Leste’s team manager Inacio da Silva Fonseca said that the Indonesian team played a great game yesterday and that the Garuda team had played it perfectly, “We learned a lot from the Indonesian team,” he said after the game.
Inacio also praised Indonesia’s preparation for the 2018 Asian Games in general. However, he complained about the 24 kilometers of Jakarta’s traffic his team had to endure from the athlete’s apartment complex in Kemayoran to the Gelora Bung Karno sporting center.
Read: Traffic will be Managed During 2018 Asian Games Test Event
“Indeed we were escorted along the journey, everything was by the protocol. But even that was almost an hour trip,” said Inacio.
Referring to the standard travel time that was determined earlier, the maximum amount of time spent by an athlete in their journey between these two locations is 30 minutes. This makes it a requirement for the athlete entourage to be escorted by authorities to plow-through the city’s notorious traffic jams.
The same sentiment was echoed by Timor Leste’s basketball team captain Joao de Araujo Soares. He said that traveling through dense traffic conditions slightly affected the athlete’s condition during a play. “We were exhausted by the journey through traffic jams.”
During the 2018 Asian Games test events and main events set to be held in August, the athletes are required to stay at athlete’s apartment complex in Kemayoran.
Egi Adyatama