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Asian Games: Indonesian male gymnasts begin medal campaign
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The arena of the 15th Junior Artistic Gymnastics Asian Championships 2018 at Istora Senayan in the Gelora Bung Karno sports complex, Jakarta, on Wednesday. Gymnasts from 20 countries are taking part in the event, which will end on Saturday. (Persani/Persani)
T
he Indonesian men’s artistic gymnastic team is set to compete Monday in the preliminary round for six medal events in the 2018 Asian Games in Jakarta.
The events are floor exercise, pommel horse, rings, vault, parallel bars and horizontal bar, which will be held at JIExpo Kemayoran in Central Jakarta. According to the official schedule, the host is in subdivision 2 along with Kazakhstan, Qatar, Japan, Vietnam, Singapore and Malaysia.
The participating teams are divided into three subdivisions. The first group competes at 1 p.m., followed by the second group, which for Indonesia is at 3:30 p.m. and the last subdivision at 6 p.m.
Indonesia is fielding five male gymnasts in the preliminary round, namely Agus Prayoko, Samsul Arifin, Muhammad Aprizal, Muhammad Try Saputra and Agung Akbar. At 23, Aprizal is the youngest, with 29-year-old Agus the oldest.
Agus, Samsul and Saputra have each won Southeast Asian (SEA) Games medals prior to their appearance at the Asian Games at home. Samsul won a bronze medal in the rings category in the 2017 SEA Games in Malaysia with a score of 13,000. His best achievement in international competitions came in the Artistic Gymnastics World Challenge Cup Doha in Qatar in 2016, where he finished 16th in the vault category.
Agus was the silver medalist in the vault category at the SEA Games in 2017. He has consistently finished in the top eight in regional competitions over the last seven years.
Saputra won the bar category gold medal in the 2011 SEA Games in Jakarta and has always finished between fourth and eighth in various categories in the last seven years.
Indonesia is banking on five male and five female athletes in its quest for the first-ever Asian Games gymnastics medal. A total of 139 gymnasts from 23 countries are participating in the competition.
The women’s preliminary round will start at 2 p.m. Tuesday, followed by final matches for the men’s team on Aug. 22 and the apparatus finals on Thursday and Friday.
