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Coach Eni vows to take athletes to Olympic glory
Track and field coach Eni Nuraeni has an ambitious target — to take her charges to the ultimate stage, the Olympics
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Track and field coach Eni Nuraeni has an ambitious target — to take her charges to the ultimate stage, the Olympics.
Eni proclaimed this after she was named Asia’s best coach recently due to her extensive coaching career, which has seen her take Indonesia’s best track and field athletes onto the world stage.
“I am very grateful for this appreciation from the Asia Athletics Association. This title has boosted my confidence to do better,” she said as quoted by Antara on Sunday.
Eni said looking at things from a competition perspective; Indonesia’s medal hopes at the Olympics could be in the men’s 4 by 100-meter relay. Indonesia won a silver medal in the event at the 2018 Asian Games, which was jointly hosted by Jakarta and Palembang in South Sumatra.
“I am quite optimistic that our relay team can make it to the 2020 Tokyo Olympics,” Eni said on the sidelines of the ceremony, which was held in Doha, Qatar.
Aside from the relay team, she had high hopes in Indonesia’s sprint sensation, Lalu Muhammad Zohri.
Eni said Lalu had huge potential to become an outstanding athlete, adding that he had a lethal combination of being young, skillful and a good attitude.
“What he can achieve with those combinations is limitless,” she added.
Eni, now 72, has been long viewed as one of the most respected names in track and field and has contributed immensely to the development of the sport in the country.
She, for example, was the architect behind Zohri’s gold medal at the 2018 World Junior Athletics Championship in Tampere, Finland.
She was also the one who trained the men’s relay team that won a silver medal at the 2018 Asian Games.
Eni also coached Suryo Agung Wibowo, another outstanding Indonesian sprinter, who was once dubbed the fastest man in Southeast Asia due to his breaking of regional records in the 100-m dash. Suryo’s best time of 10. 17 seconds remains unbeaten.
Eni started out as a swimmer, winning silver and bronze medals in the freestyle relay at the 1962 Asian Games. She started her coaching career in 1985 after following in the footsteps of her husband, Sumartoyo Martodihardjo.
Eni has level 2 coaching certification from the International Association of Athletics Federation
Besides Eni, Indonesian Athletics Association’s secretary-general, Tigor Tanjung, was named as the most dedicated secretary-general for athletics at the awards ceremony.
