Securing 14 gold medals from the 18th Asian Games has made pencak silat the biggest gold medal contributor for Indonesia so far. However, pencak silat would need to gain more popularity before it can be included in the Olympics Games.

Indonesia Pencak Silat Association (PB PASI) acting chief Edhie Prabowo wants the government to be aggressive in its attempt to introduce the traditional martial art to more countries so it could make its way to the Olympics.

“We will still need more countries to adopt and acknowledge pencak silat’s existence so it can be competed in the Olympics. We need the government to lead us in the lobbying process,” he said.

According to Olympic regulations, a sport needs to be acknowledged by 75 countries before it can be included in the major international sporting event.

However, Edhy said that to date, the association still needed to pursue another 45 countries over four continent to acknowledge and practice pencak silat before it could talk and convince the International Olympic Committee (IOC) about letting pencak silat into the Olympics.

The IOC’s factsheet on sports programs includes seven categories in evaluation: history and tradition, universality, popularity of the sport, image, athletes’ health, development of the international federation and costs.

On Aug. 20, Indonesia’s Youth and Sports Minister Imam Nahrawi met with the president of the Tokyo 2020 Olympics and Paralympics, Toshiaki Endo. During the meeting, Nahrawi asked Japan, as host, to include pencak silat in the event.

The same request was also voiced during a ministerial meeting with Japan’s Culture, Education, Sports and Technology Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi on Monday, in which Minister Hayashi promised to persuade the Japanese Olympic Committee to exhibit pencak silat during the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.

If things go as planned, pencak silat will be part of an exhibition in the upcoming Tokyo Olympics before it will be competed in the 2024 Paris Olympics.

Puspa Arumsari, who clinched a gold medal in pencak silat during the Asian Games, hopes to perform in Tokyo two years from now.

“I hope that after this, pencak silat could be included in the Tokyo Olympics’ agenda, at least for an exhibition match,” said Puspa, who won gold in the women’s artistic category.

Aside from the lack of popularity, pencak silat is still facing criticism from fellow Asian countries that question the integrity of referees who they claim often take side of the host country.

Monday’s final, for example, included a controversial scene where Malaysian athlete Mohd Al-Jufferi withdrew from the match just two seconds before it was over because he felt the referees had judged him unfairly.

Commenting on this, Edhie said that, rest assured, there would be no unfair treatment.

Indonesia’s dominance in the sport, according to many, could also disrupt the country’s lobbying efforts as many other countries would believe there was no use for them to compete if Indonesia claimed each and every competition.

Indonesia secured 14 gold medals out of 15 on offer in the competition, which ended on Wednesday. The last gold was won by Wewey Wita in the women’s class B (50-55 kilograms).

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