The ticket prices are two or three folds more expensive.
Jakarta (ANTARA) - Indonesia will dispatch a total of 87 athletes to compete in 13 sports during the implementation of the 5th Islamic Solidarity Games scheduled to be held in Konya, Turkey, on August 9-18, 2022.

Chef de Mission (CdM) of the contingent Rafiq Radinal noted in a statement here on Friday that the departure of the athletes would be conducted in stages in accordance with the match schedule.

The shooting and cycling teams have arrived in Konya. Furthermore, on Saturday (August 6), the athletics and taekwondo teams will leave for the tournament.

Meanwhile, the rest of the athletes are scheduled to depart on Monday night (August 8).

Indonesia does not participate in all 20 sports competed in the 5th Islamic Solidarity Games due to limited budget, especially owing to the soaring prices of plane tickets to Konya.

“The ticket prices are two or three folds more expensive. The current inflation in Turkey affects the increase of (the commodity) price there,” the CdM noted.

Radinal remarked that his side, in fact, found it difficult to reduce the number of athletes to be sent for the event, though the step had to be taken on account of budgetary constraints.

Hence, his side allowed the self-funding scheme to be used owing to the quite high level of enthusiasm for several sports.

A total of 12 sports -- archery, athletics, road discipline bicycle racing, gymnastics, judo, karate, kickboxing, shooting, swimming, taekwondo, weightlifting, and wrestling -- were funded by using the state budget.

However, for some of the state-funded sports, such as taekwondo, shooting, gymnastics, and weightlifting, it was decided to send additional athletes using the self-funding scheme since the event is a good opportunity to prepare for various bigger sporting events, Radinal noted.

Meanwhile, the table tennis team has urged the Indonesian Olympic Committee (KOI) to be allowed to participate with a full self-funding scheme.

The Islamic Solidarity Games is a multi-sport event held for the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) member countries.

In this edition, 20 sports are contested: athletics, archery, 3x3 basketball, bocce, cycling (road and track events), fencing, soccer, gymnastics (artistic, aerobics, and rhythmic events), handball, judo, karate, kickboxing, shooting, swimming, table tennis, taekwondo, volleyball, weightlifting, wrestling (freestyle and Greco-Roman events), as well as traditional archery.

In addition, several paralympic sports are competed in the event.

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Translator: Shofi Ayudiana, Uyu Liman
Editor: Sri Haryati
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