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ndonesian athletes brought home 18 gold medals, 22 silver and 11 bronze medals from the eighth Beijing International Wushu Invitational Tournament in Beijing.

The Indonesian athletes, who came mostly from Jakarta-based wushu school Inti Bayangan, swept up 18 golds medals out of 46 gold medals in the taulu category contested at the biannual tournament, also known as the Beijing Open.

Other large wushu schools such as Rajawali Sakti, Harmony, Phoenix and Naga Mas also sent representatives to the Chinese Wushu Association sanctioned event, held in Beijing Shijingshan Gymnasium from July 24 to July 26.

More than 600 athletes from 76 teams coming from 10 countries in Europe, America and Asia took part in the event which was organized by Beijing Wushu Academy.

While most of the nations sent less than 10 athletes, Indonesia sent up to 50 wushu athletes to the tournament competing the taulu category, a wushu category which focusing on the form and choreography. Indonesia athletes were not competing in the other two categories of wushu — traditional wushu and fighting wushu (sanshou).

All Indonesian athletes come from four dojo (wushu schools) in Greater Jakarta, Yogyakarta, Surabaya and Jambi. Chairman of Jakarta-based Inti Bayangan wushu school, Ahmad Rivai, praised his athletes.

“I’m so glad Inti Bayangan has won that much. Actually, six of those gold medals are belong to Jakarta too since the athletes who obtained the medals [Achmad Hulayifi and his little sister Rara] are under Greater Jakarta Wushu,” he said.

Ahmad, also a committee member of Greater Jakarta Wushu association, said that China, as the country where wushu originated and the host of the tournament, held the tournament exclusively.

“Chinese athletes were competing against Chinese athletes. Then the guest nation competed against another nation.”

“It wasn’t a problem at all since Chinese athletes are the greatest masters of wushu. I don’t think any countries could beat Chinese yet,” Rivai continued.

“Athletes from other Asian nations such as Singapore and Malaysia were good competitors. Their wushu skills have improved a lot and by joining such an international competition, we could measure our wushu skills on the international stage,” he added.

“We will be more than ready to join the Olympics if we combine all our resources and therefore our athletes can focus well,” said Agus Antares head of international relations at the Indonesian Wushu Association.

Beside participating in the tournament, the Jakarta wushu team also visited Shichahai wushu school in Xicheng, China. Shichahai is one of the greatest wushu schools in China and it is also a wushu school pioneer. Actor Jet Li was one of its students and some scenes in the recently released movie Karate Kid were set in Shichahai.