Spectators rose and broke silence as East Java’s archery squad member was about to release his last arrow in the final against East Kalimantan at the archery venue in Riau Islamic University.

The neck-and-neck battle ended 222-221 in favor of East Kalimantan, who promptly erupted in celebration.

Known as the country’s archery stronghold, East Java has collected five out of 12 gold medals on offer. But on Sunday, the team had to swallow a bitter pill even though SEA Games double silver medalist Kuswantoro lined up for the squad.

West Java’s archers had to be content with third place.

The Indonesian Archery Association’s (PERPANI) East Java branch secretary general Denny Trisyanto said there were some times when athletes just had to accept their losses even with a very tight score.

“That is exactly the time when it feels most painful,” he said after the final event of the day, referring to East Java’s close-fought defeat in the men’s group compound.

“It’s all a test of mentality. We saw [one of the archers] score seven [with one arrow]. At this, PON, level of competition, an archer should score nine at least.”

According to Denny, the score was below the team’s best of 233.

But he said he was still optimistic that East Java could win another gold medal in one of the four remaining events that would run until Tuesday.

Kuswantoro hoped that he would be able to make amends for the missing gold.

“We should have won. But maybe it was just their luck,” he said, adding that he was relaxed during the final match.

East Kalimantan, which won five of 32 gold medals on offer at the 2008 Games, has set a lower target of only two golds now.

“Thank God. We have met half of our target,” coach Agus Salim said.

“East Java is indeed strong. But this is the time for the East Kalimantan team to prove it is also strong,” he said, adding that he still hoped for another gold medal from the individual or group national events.

In the women’s group recurve, PON gold medalist Diananda Choirunisa, Mirsa Veronika Sandy and Novia Nuraini collected the fourth gold medal on Sunday for East Java by beating Yogyakarta’s squad with another tight score of 203-201.

West Java finished third in that event also.

Meanwhile, the three-men squad of East Java had to fight out a shootout round, each with one arrow, against Central Java to win the bronze in the men’s team recurve.

Yogyakarta shot to the first place in the men’s group recurve, followed by silver medalist East Kalimantan.

East Java seized its fifth gold medal in the women’s team compound through Dellie Threesyadinda, Lilies Heliarti and Della Adisty Handayani, beating East Kalimantan 223-210 in the final.

Threesyadinda, known as Dinda, and Della are daughters of former archer Lilies Handayani, who won a silver medal at the 1988 Olympics in South Korea that turned out to be Indonesia’s first Olympic medal after 36 years of participation.

The bronze medal in that event went to Bali who defeated West Papua.

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