Thus, the reserve athletes are always ready to compete."
Jakarta (ANTARA News) - Starting January 2017, Indonesia will intensify training of its athletes who will take part in the 2017 Southeast Asian (SEA) Games, scheduled to be held in Malaysia in August.

However, this is not aimed at maximizing their achievements in the SEA Games because the country is not setting a medal target for the games.

Instead, the idea, according to the Youth and Sports Affairs Minister Imam Nahrawi, is to prepare them for the Asian Games 2018 and Olympic Games 2020.

"We will send only a maximum of 250 athletes to the SEA Games 2017 in Malaysia, unlike in SEA Games 2015 when we sent 500 athletes," the minister said last Friday.

According to him, this years SEA Games, as a multi-sport championship at the Southeast Asian level, will only be a stepping stone for Indonesian athletes, especially in a number of priority sports where they can potentially win medals.

SEA Games is a sporting event built on the friendship of countries belonging to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), and a number of non-Olympic sports will be contested there.

Nevertheless, despite no targets, Minister Imam Nahrawi has said that he will give bonuses to all athletes who wins medals at the SEA Games.

The minister also hoped that the public will not demand high performances from Indonesian athletes in 2017 because the focus of the countrys contingent is on the Asian Games 2018, which is slated to be held in Indonesia.

The Indonesian contingent has also not set a target at the trials for the Asian Games that will be held at the Bung Karno sports stadium in Jakarta later this year.

"Thats a championship trial. The athletes who will participate in this event are the young ones and not the athletes that join the national training (pelatnas)," he explained.

The Youth and Sports Affairs Ministry (Kemenpora) is focusing on training athletes at the Olympic training center or the Olympic Center in Cibubur, East Jakarta.

"We will give full attention to athletes at the Olympic Center for achieving good performances in the Asian Games. The Satlak Prima (the Indonesian Golden Program Implementing Unit) will continue to monitor the athletes with the Sport Science approach," he said.

The preparation for the 2018 Asian Games is one of four programs of the Kemenpora in 2017.

Meanwhile, the Indonesia National Sports Committee (KONI) will provide reserve athletes to support the "elite" athletes who are being trained by the Indonesian Golden Program Implementing Unit (Prima), an official has said.

"Central Executive Board of KONI is ready to support the Indonesian Golden Program Implementing Unit in preparing the reserve athletes whose quality is not much different from the athletes who are being trained by the Indonesian Golden Program Implementing Unit," Hamidy, secretary to Central Executive Board of KONI, said here on Monday.

According to him, Prima takes the best athletes ranked one and two from the National Sports Week (PON) while KONI will train athletes from ranked three to five for all sports.

"Thus, the reserve athletes are always ready to compete," he explained, adding that this was being done to maximize Indonesias success in both the SEA Games and the Asian Games.

Meanwhile, the kemenpora has also paid salaries and accommodation fees for November and December 2016 for athletes and officials of the Prima program as well as the athletes and coaches in the Indonesia Paralympic Committee, Deputy IV of Improvement of the Sports Performance of the Kemenpora Gatot S Dewa Broto said in Jakarta on Tuesday.

The salaries and accommodation fees have been paid for athletes and officials of 28 sports namely weightlifting, athletics, cycling, billiards, beach volleyball, bowling, badminton, rowing (canoeing, rowing, dragon boat), golf, judo, karate, diving, archery, martial arts, sailboat , swimming, water skiing, soft tennis, squash, taekwondo, tennis, boxing, triathlon, wushu, as well as branches Paralympic located in Solo.

The salary of the athletes is Rp7,500,000 per month, on average. The chief coach and coach are paid Rp12,500,000 and Rp10,000,000 respectively while foreign coaches receive Rp60,000,000 each.

The total payment for 630 athletes and officials from 28 sports and paralympic athletes amounted to Rp18.3 billion, Gatot stated.

Regarding the preparation for Asian Games 2018, President Joko Widodo (Jokowi) recently inspected the construction of apartment towers in Kemayoran, Central Jakarta, to house athletes competing in the 2018 Asian Games.

"Block D10 of the Kemayoran Complex has been completed," Jokowi said here last Thursday.

The president noted that the government is building 10 apartment towers in Kemayoran.

"Blocks D10 and C2 will have seven apartment towers and three apartment towers respectively," he remarked.

Block D10 will have seven towers containing 5.4 thousand apartments. Block C2 will have 1.9 thousand apartments for accommodating journalists and officials of the Asian Games.

The construction of all towers is expected to be completed in September 2017.

The apartments are being constructed on 10 hectares of land, worth Rp3.4 trillion.
(T.B003/INE/KR-BSR/A014)

Reporter: Bustanuddin
Editor: Priyambodo RH
Copyright © ANTARA 2017