VOI - Voice of Indonesia | RRI - Radio Republik Indonesia

Several esports athletes attend the national training center for the 31st Hanoi SEA Games in Megamendung Sub-district, Bogor District, West Java Province, on April 7, 2022. (ANTARA PHOTO/Yulius Satria Wijaya/aww/uyu) - 

The Youth and Sports Ministry has guaranteed that all athletes dispatched to the 31st Hanoi Southeast Asian (SEA) Games will be able to bag medals for Indonesia since their performance had been reviewed and analysed.

The ministry’s head of National Sports Performance Improvement (PPON) review team, Mochamad Asnawi, stated during a discussion here on Friday evening that the data used for the analysis were the achievements of athletes in the earlier SEA Games as well as regional and international tournaments in which the athletes participated during the 2019-2021 period.

At the 2019 Philippines SEA Games, Indonesia had sent 841 athletes without being reviewed.

However, the review team head noted that the number of medals won did not compensate for the number of the athletes sent and the amount of budget spent.

Hence, at the 31st Hanoi SEA Games, the ministry decided to focus on efficiency by reducing the number of athletes sent to the biennial sporting event.

“We send a lot of athletes to the 2019 Philippines SEA Games, though many of them lost in the early rounds. We do not want it to happen again since we have to use the budget efficiently. Thus, we expect that any athlete, who competes, can win a medal,” Asnawi emphasized.

Regarding 38 esports athletes sent to the event, he assessed that they have the potential to secure gold medals since several of the Indonesian esports athletes had recorded various international achievements.

"We will recommend them to be sent to the 31st Hanoi SEA Games, so that the gold and silver medals of the esports event will not be snatched by other contingents," he emphasized.

The same applies to vovinam for which 10 athletes can be sent, although it is not a prominent sport included in the ministry’s National Sports Grand Design (DBON) and is not competed in the Asian Games.

However, he assessed that Indonesian vovinam athletes have potential to bag gold and silver medals at the international sporting event//ANT