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Swimmer Falma wins bronze for Indonesia in Special olympics

Indonesia won its first medal in the 2019 Special Olympics Summer World Games in swimming at the Hamdan Sports Complex in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, on Saturday

The Jakarta Post
Jakarta
Mon, March 18, 2019

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Swimmer Falma wins bronze for Indonesia in Special olympics

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span>Indonesia won its first medal in the 2019 Special Olympics Summer World Games in swimming at the Hamdan Sports Complex in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, on Saturday.

Falma Thifal Fikriah clocked in at 40.01 seconds in the women’s 50 meters freestyle of the F14 division to win a bronze medal. South Koreans Hee Jeong-park and Ji Yeon-ku won gold and silver, respectively.

Team Indonesia’s deputy chief on technical affairs, Mustara Musa, lauded Falma for the achievement.

“I hope [Falma] will do even better in the next event. [On Saturday’s race] she was a bit late to start, but she really has the potential,” Mustara said in a statement.

Falma, 16, is younger to the other medalists. Hee is 23 years old, while Ji is 21. The team said it believed that if the event was contested again in the next Games in 2023, Falma would have the chance to become a favorite.

However, another swimmer, Refel Andre, could not achieve the same success as Falma as he was disqualified in the men’s 50 m freestyle M15 division for breaking a regulation. Refel, who made 29.79 seconds in the race, had to be disqualified because of exceeding 15 percent of his maximum effort, which was 36.86 seconds, during the divisioning (categorization) session.

In Abu Dhabi, Indonesia made good progress in several unified sports.

The Special Olympics unified sports combine people with intellectual disabilities (traditional Special Olympics athletes) and without (called partners) on sports teams for training and competition. Such an approach increases inclusion and uses sports to help break down barriers that have historically kept people apart.

In the men’s futsal unified category, Indonesia won 4-2 over France. Meanwhile, in unified volleyball, Indonesia won 25-18, 28-26 to Uganda.

“The unified sports competitions are really challenging. We have this regulation, which assures that any competing athletes have similar ability,” said Indonesian head coach Dian Nasrul Islam.

“In this category, partners play the important role as a balancer. Partners are prohibited from dominating the match; they have to help the athletes to score points. A partner is considered in domination when he or she repeatedly make points,” he added.

Indonesia deployed 68 athletes — consisting of 54 Special Olympics talents and 14 unified partners — to compete in 10 sports in the 2019 Games, which run from March 14 to 21.

The Games feature 24 sports, with 22 sports held in Abu Dhabi and the remaining in Dubai.

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