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The road to Korea
Tough task: A member of the Indonesian Wheelchair Rugby team trains ahead of the Incheon Asian Para Games
Tough task:: A member of the Indonesian Wheelchair Rugby team trains ahead of the Incheon Asian Para Games. (JP/JB Djwan) (JP/JB Djwan)
Tough task: A member of the Indonesian Wheelchair Rugby team trains ahead of the Incheon Asian Para Games. (JP/JB Djwan)
As medals are tallied during the Asian Games in Incheon; back home in Indonesia, the next slew of athletes heading to Korea are training hard.
While winning may be on their wish list, being selected for the team is enough for members of the first wheelchair rugby team ever fielded by Indonesia for the Asian Para Games, which will run in Incheon on Oct. 15-24.
Among the mixed team of men and women, disabilities come in many forms: amputees, those with severe birth defects and those consigned to wheelchairs through the completely preventable disease, polio.
Bali Sports Center founder Rodney Holt says most members of the Indonesian team are wheelchair bound. 'Except for the two amputees who usually get around on their stumps,' he says of this dream team, which has been pulled together in just over a month.
The Korean junior wheelchair rugby team has been in Bali to provide the Indonesians with training and specialized wheelchairs needed for the Games.
Led by the vice president of the Korean Wheelchair Rugby Association, Yoon Sewan, himself a quadriplegic, the Korean team is putting the Indonesians through their paces.
'This is our junior team. They have been training together for a year. Our senior team, which is 10 years old, will be competing at Incheon,' says Sewan, adding that Japan and Korea are the strongest teams, with Malaysia and Indonesia on similar par.
Before the arrival of the Koreans, the Indonesian team studied wheelchair rugby via YouTube, not a perfect starting place for international athletes. 'Having the Korean team here is a huge benefit,' says Holt.
The game is tough. It is the only contact team sport within the Games, demanding specifically designed chairs to protect players from the inevitable crashes.
'Falling over is common. You get hit and fall over and people come and pick you up again. The chair is an extension of the body, so if a wheel is out of bounds, that is your body out of bounds,' says Holt.
Korea has been outstanding in its support of the new Indonesian team, says Holt. However, while chairs were ordered when the team was accepted into the Games, these essential competition tools have yet to arrive in Bali.
'The Koreans have brought with them the wheelchairs so our team can get used to using these and they will then compete in Incheon with the loaned wheelchairs. The Korean Wheelchair Rugby Association has been instrumental in getting the Indonesian team to the Games and equipped with chairs and gloves to compete,' says Holt.
Putting together an international-level team in a few short weeks without funding has been huge task, says Holt on the sidelines of training. 'Even down to passports. Of course some ID names of players did not exactly match their birth certificates, so we had to get out into the villages and have the village chiefs sign off on these so the passports could be processed, '.
Amid cries for speed, the athletes zoom their chairs through a series of cones to develop speed and accuracy, while others push and pull wheelchairs for strength training. The physical differences between the Korean and Indonesian athletes are telling.
'You see the Koreans are much stronger and taller. Most of the Korean team are either paralyzed or have cerebral palsy. So the team compositions are quite different. The Indonesians mainly have birth defects or are polio victims,' says Holt.
A team can have up to eight points from their four team members. Points are awarded on the level of disability ' the more able bodied a group, the more points they hold.
'We had to change our team lineup because we broke the eight-point level. So our new team is made up of athletes with greater disabilities under the ranking,' says Holt as he helps to strap into her chair a young woman who from birth has only a couple of fingers on each hand and feet growing backward from where her knees should be.
This 'can do' attitude is what assistant coach Wayan Damai is looking for. A wheelchair basketball athlete, Damai is sharing his skills with the rugby team.
'I am helping out with training and will join the team in Korea. My job will be assisting players and teaching the discipline needed at this level of sport,' says Damai who trained as a basketball coach and wheelchair mechanic in Bangkok.
'Because it is a contact sport, the chairs need to be checked constantly. Going to Korea fills me with excitement. I never expected to go. I always had this dream, but now it is becoming a reality [...]'
One star player for the team, 22-year-old Gede Susila, has the upper body physique of a true athlete.
Having been infected with polio as a child, Susila is wheelchair bound, his legs wasted as matchsticks; the contrast between his upper and lower body is stark.
'I am a wheelchair sprinter. I've competed in Jakarta, but to take part in the Asian Para Games is a beyond my dreams,' Susila says. 'I feel really, really happy to be going to Korea. There will be so many experiences. My biggest hope is that we win the wheelchair rugby event, that we will be the champions.'
