T

he Surakarta (Solo) municipal administration has declared its readiness to host the Southeast Asian sport games for athletes with physical disabilities, the ASEAN Para Games (APG) 2011.

President Susilo Bambang Yu-dhoyono is scheduled to officially open the event, which will be held in the municipality from Dec. 12 to 22.

“Solo is completely ready for the event,” Mayor Joko “Jokowi” Widodo said on Monday.

Central Java’s Surakarta is popularly known as Solo.

He said preparations included the arrangement of supporting facilities such as toilets, athletes’ changing rooms and special facilities for “diffables” (people with different abilities).

All 10 ASEAN member countries and Timor Leste will participate in the event.

It will be the sixth Para Games since the first were held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, in 2001.

The biennial games will feature 420 games from 11 different sports of weightlifting, athletics, badminton, chess, goalball, archery, swimming, wheelchair tennis, table tennis, tenpin bowling and sitting volleyball.

Athletics, swimming and sitting volleyball will be held at Manahan Stadium in Surakarta and the remaining games held in various venues in Solo and its outskirts.

Among the venues prepared for the regional event are the Sritex sports hall (for badminton), R Maladi Sriwedari Stadium (archery), Gedung Wanita (weightlifting), City Hall verandah (chess), Diamond Convention Center (table tennis), Bengawan Sports Center (tenpin bowling) and Karanganyar Nyi Ageng Arang Sports Stadium (goalball).

“Renovation work is still under way. Hopefully, everything will be finished before Dec. 10,” the chairman of the municipal administration’s APG VI task force, Satriyo Teguh Subroto, said.

The Para Games are being held in the wake of the SEA Games, which were co-hosted by Jakarta and Palembang from Nov. 11 to 22, with Indonesia emerging as overall gold medal winner.