I

ndonesia saw its medal hopes come to nothing on Monday, with the country'€™s athletes lagging far behind their Asian competitors in the canoeing and kayaking finals at the Hanam Misari Canoe Center.

In eight of the day'€™s 12 finals, the Indonesian competitors didn'€™t even come close to paddling themselves onto the podium. Their best performance was in the men'€™s 1000 meters kayak four, in which Andri Sugiarto, Maizir Riyondra, Dedi Kurniawan Suyatno and Muchlis posted a time of 3:12.178 seconds to finish fifth behind champion Kazakhstan, China, Uzbekistan and Iran.

Elsewhere, Indonesia languished in either seventh, eighth or ninth place out of nine participants. The team had banked its medal hopes on Spens Stuber Mehue in the men'€™s singles 200 m canoe and men'€™s doubles 1000 m canoe.

Despite the failure, team manager Hari Sidharta said he was satisfied with the athletes'€™ performance during the Games.

'€œAt the last Asian Games in Guangzhou, we failed to qualify for the finals. We are proud to be able to compete in the finals. We qualified for eight finals out of the ten events we participated in,'€ Hari said.

Indonesia was one of three Southeast Asian countries to participate in the canoeing and kayaking finals, along with Thailand and Singapore. Hari said it would take time for Indonesia to be able to match Asia'€™s top countries in the sport.

He said the athletes had had enough time to prepare themselves for the games but that the government had been late in issuing certain training equipment.

'€œThe government did not support us properly, especially in the provision of equipment. Training equipment was issued two or three days before the start of the Games,'€ he said.

Kazakhstan topped the Canoe Center medal tally with five gold medals, followed by China with three and Uzbekistan with two. South Korea and Japan split the remaining two.

Looking ahead to the next edition of the Games, Hari explained the need for separate training for canoeing and kayaking, rowing and dragon boat.

'€œWe also need to hire a foreign trainer,'€ he said, adding that hiring a coach from Uzbekistan was an option.

The Uzbeks got off to a flying start, snatching the first two gold medals on offer through Alexey Mochalov in the men'€™s singles 1000m kayak and Vadim Menkov in the men'€™s singles 1000 m canoe.

Menkov'€™s victory was down to his outstanding sprint in the last 200 m when he had to overhaul leader Yuriy Berezintsev of Kazakhstan.

'€œI'€™m happy to have won gold. Kazakhstan is very strong in this sport. I gave all my power and stamina in the last 200 meters,'€ Menkov said during a media conference.

Anwar Tarra of Indonesia finished in eighth place, 21 seconds behind the winner.

'€œWe record the time after every 200 meters. We will evaluate where [our athletes] are failing. It could be from the very start, or a few meters after the start,'€ Hari said.