J

span class="caption" style="width: 398px;">JP/Willy WilsonToday’s successful athletes are no rock stars, but they certainly live like them.

Winning a national and regional championship renders an athlete the fame of a celebrity and handsomely paid compensation. And, if an athlete is lucky, they can even score an endorsement deal or two. But for legendary badminton superstar Ivana Lie, such glitz and glamor was never part of her life.  

“Back in my day we had to compete against our own peers in order to compete in the All England, the reason being there was not enough budget to fly the whole team, so we had to choose the very best to play there,” she said.

“But for professional athletes, such adversity built our characters — persistence, perseverance and a competitive edge — which today’s athletes seem to lack. They seem to be easily pleased with winning a competition or two,” said Ivana rather pointedly.

Her struggle as an athlete — and a national icon — still casts a chilling effect on most Indonesian Chinese. She went from a stateless individual with no financial security to a special position at the Youth and Sports Ministry. She also snatched gold and silver medals in more than 30 competitions throughout her career in the 1980s.

This is certainly not a bad accomplishment for someone who started playing badminton using a plastic plate as a racket.

Unlike many descendants of overseas Chinese, Ivana wasn’t born with a silver spoon in her mouth. The 51-year-old was instead born into a struggling rural family in Bandung.

As a child, Ivana knew all too well the realities of poverty. She admitted that she grew up poor and at one point her parents had problems paying her school tuition. Added to those woes was her parents’ foreigner status in the country, which automatically made Ivana a stateless individual.

But it wasn’t all gloomy, as young Ivana soon realized her talent in badminton.

“Badminton was already a popular game at that time. People in my neighborhood used plates to play the game. I first owned a proper racket when I was in primary five. And I knew immediately that I could play the game well,” Ivana recalled.

Ivana played the sport so well that she soon represented her school at a regional competition in which she emerged as a winner. She then experienced the sweet taste of winning when her school decided to wave her tuition fee.

The unfortunate financial situation her family faced at that time didn’t deter her spirit and she signed up with a badminton club called Mutiara. Her first encounter with professional training was there. Two years and eight months after practicing at Mutiara, Ivana took a leap of faith and received an invitation to join the national training camp in 1976.

Soon, Ivana became a rising star in the sports world. She first attracted worldwide attention when she emerged as the runner-up at the 1978 Uber Cup and 1978 Asian Games. The following year saw Ivana snatch gold at the Denmark Open and Southeast Asian (SEA) Games. Then there was the 1980 World Badminton Championship in which she was runner-up.

The 1980s saw Ivana drive home gold and silver at numerous world competitions — the Indonesian Open, China Open, US Open, Taiwan Open, SEA Games, Asian Games and Badminton World Championship – as both singles and a team player.

Asked about her proudest moment as an athlete, Ivana said that winning gold at the Asian Games (with partner Christian Hadinata) in 1982 was “the most memorable experience of my career”.

“There are two reasons that made this particular win special,” she said. “First, I had gone for an operation following a leg injury I suffered a few months earlier. Second, I was awarded Indonesian citizenship right after I won that particular competition.”

Ivana, along with other Indonesian Chinese badminton athletes at that time, had been stateless individuals for years despite competing for Indonesia in numerous international competitions.

“I was a stateless person for five years,” she said.

Ivana admitted to having traveled overseas with a temporary passport otherwise known as a Surat Perjalanan Laksana Paspor. Under Soeharto’s regime, every Indonesian-born Chinese over 18 years old was required to have a SBKRI or Surat Bukti Kewarganegaraan Republik
Indonesia. While today there’s no need for an Indonesian Chinese person to prove their citizenship by acquiring an SKBRI, Ivana made her mark in an era when her surname was often frowned upon. However, she has realized that things have been heading in the right direction since the day she earned her Indonesian citizenship.

In 2000, then President Abdurrahman Wahid decided to remove the constraints on cultural expression by the ethnic Chinese in Indonesia by allowing Chinese New Year’s celebrations. Efforts to eradicate discrimination against the Chinese community in Indonesia were also taken by former president Megawati Soekarnoputri, who in 2003 declared Chinese New Year a national holiday.

Such symbolic nods from the government were unimaginable during Soeharto’s time. While such moves may have meant much to many Chinese Indonesians who had been seeking recognition that they were part of the nation, Ivana decided to make peace with the troubled past and continue serving the nation she loves dearly.

Today, decades after her heyday as a badminton superstar, Ivana still dedicates her time and energy to developing the nation’s increasingly sagging badminton team. At the Youth and Sports Ministry where she now works, she tirelessly strives to groom and nurture today’s badminton talents.

“We must develop the talent holistically — physically and psychologically. In countries like Japan, Korea and China, talents are molded to be winners from a very young age,” she said.

“The school system over there allowed children to explore their sports talent. This is something to think about, as today’s athletes have more burdens on their shoulders than before,” she said, adding, “No problem about sponsors and citizenship. If anything, they should perform better than the previous generations!”

On that note, we wish Ivana and her family an auspicious and prosperous Chinese New Year.