RI claims its second gold in the dragon boat

Matheos Viktor Messakh, The Jakarta Post, Guangzhou, China | Sat, 11/20/2010 8:18 AM | Headlines

Glorious moment: Members of Indonesian men’s dragon boat team celebrate with their gold medals after the medal ceremony for the men’s 500m straight race at the dragon boat event for the 16th Asian Games in Guangzhou, China, on Friday. Antara/Andika Wahyu

 Perhaps Indonesia should start realizing what its strength is as one of the largest archipelagic countries in the world.

Until day seven of the 16th Asian Games (not 26th Games as reported on Friday on this page) the only two gold medals collected by the country were in the aquatic sport of the dragon boat — which resembles many traditional rowing sports in Indonesia.

The first gold was won on Thursday in the men’s 1,000-meter Straight Race, while the second gold was in the men’s 500-meter Straight Race on Friday.

Starting in lane four, the Indonesian team of 20 was left behind by Myanmar, who got off to an early start. But after 200 meters Indonesia took the lead, clocking in at 51.952 for the first 250 meters and hitting the finish line at 01:44.506.

Team Myanmar, the favorite, crossed the finish line second at 01:45.622, while host team China secured the bronze in 01:46.480.

“It felt good. I wasn’t exhausted during today’s competition. We will keep our energy up for tomorrow. We are equally good at both of the shorter races,” Indonesian team captain Asnawir said. “We hope we can get the gold in the 250-meter race.”

Team manager Djamal Uddin Young Mardinal said he and his squad were happy, despite not being the favorite to win in the class.

“In our last two meetings, at the 2007 Southeast Asian Games and the 2008 Asian Beach Games, we were always second [to Myanmar]. We actually just grabbed the gold from their hands,” Djamal told The Jakarta Post after the race.

After learning from defeat in their last two meetings, the team evaluated their strengths and weaknesses and focused on what they could do to defeat Myanmar, Djamal said.

Didin Rusdiana, one of the team members, said the victory was a result of seven months of training at Jatiluhur Dam in West Java, where the team focused on improving their power and endurance in order to defeat Myanmar.

“We trained five days a week, three times a day, in the morning, afternoon and evening. We rowed 15 to 20 kilometers each session with different weights and at different speeds,” the 31-year-old Bogor civil servant said.

The women’s team also shone in the 500-meter straight race after crossing the finish line at 02:02.875 to grab the silver medal, second only to the Chinese team. Thailand finished third.

Indonesia’s head coach Mohammad Suryadi, however, was not content with the women’s finish, blaming a lack of preparation for their failure to win gold.

“The men’s team has been preparing for this competition since late February, but the women’s team began in June,” Suryadi said.

The dragon boat competition is divided into six divisions, made up of men’s and women’s races in the 1,000-, 500- and 250-meter. Each team has 20 rowers, one steersman and one drummer.

The teams, with almost the same members, will compete in the men’s and women’s 250-meter races on Saturday.