I

ndonesia is aiming to become the overall champion at the 17th ASEAN University Games (AUG), which officially commenced on Wednesday in Palembang, South Sumatra.

The host is hoping for 90 out of 225 gold medals up for grabs during the 11-day event, which will run until Dec. 21.

At the previous games in Vientiane, Laos, Indonesia brought home 41 gold medals and finished fourth among ten nations in the medal standings.

'€œSeeing the previous events, hosts have always dominated [the medal tally]. I think the target is feasible,'€ said Mulyana, head of the achievement and competition development division at the Indonesian University Sports Agency (Bapomi).

Up until the opening ceremony on Wednesday, Thailand led in the medal standings with four gold, three silver and two bronze medals followed by the Philippines (two, two and three) and Laos (two, one and zero). Indonesia was in fourth position with one gold, three silver and three bronze medals.

He hoped Indonesia could bring home more gold in swimming, athletics, pencak silat (traditional martial arts), taekwondo, karate, archery and badminton.

Indonesia is deploying 349 athletes, including 2014 Asian Games gold medalist Maria Natalia Londa '€” who is still registered as a student at the institute of teacher training and education, IKIP PGRI Denpa-sar, in Bali '€” for the multisport event.

Maria won the long jump competition to contribute one to Indonesia'€™s four-gold collection at the Asian multi-event sporting showcase in Incheon, South Korea, in September.

'€œ[Most] athletes who are competing in this event are medalists of the 2013 National Student Games in
Yogyakarta,'€ Mulyana said.

He added that there were many tough competitors in the biennial event that features 11 member countries of the ASEAN University Sports Federation (AUSF), including Vietnam, which dominates the karate and taekwondo, and Malaysia, which became the overall winner at the 16th AUG in Vientiane in 2012 with a total of 60 gold medals.

The last time Indonesia came out as the overall winner was at the 12th AUG in Surabaya, East Java, in 2004.

Mulyana said that Bapomi had tried to improve sporting performance at the university level in the hope that the program could provide national athletes for international challenges.

'€œWe want to be like Europe and the United States where they have their own student sports federations. We also want to be like them so that we [Bapomi] could provide this nation with quality athletes,'€ he said.