The National Sports Council (KONI) has come up with an alternative plan for sports that are unlikely to be contested in the 2020 National Games (PON), given the limited infrastructure in host province Papua.

The sports are cycling, table tennis, bridge, gateball, water skiing, golf, sport dance, petanque, woodball and soft tennis.

The two-week games are set to be held in Jayapura city and regency as well as Mimika regency in October and November, 2020.

Youth and Sports Ministry secretary Gatot S. Dewa Broto said the main plan to accommodate the sports was to revise a government regulation on the Games.

“Now we are waiting for the revision of Government Regulation No. 17/2007 on PON to be signed by President Joko 'Jokowi' Widodo,” said Gatot.

The revision will enable more than one province to host the games.

Should the expected revision not materialize, KONI chief Marciano Norman said the council had prepared a plan B, which is organizing separate national championships for the sports.

“As for the venues, we still need to discuss this further. However, the province that has already been deemed ready is Jakarta,” he told The Jakarta Post.

Jakarta’s sporting venues underwent major renovations for the 2018 Asian Games, which it hosted along with Palembang in South Sumatra.

Indonesian Cycling Association (ISSI) chief Raja Sapta Oktohari, known as Okto, praised the initiative, saying that athletes needed national-level competition as the base to achieve greater things on the international stage.

“An athlete’s ultimate goal is always the Olympics. However, we need to gradually test their skills through championships such as the PON. Thus, the games play a pivotal role in this area,” he said.

Commenting on the uncertainty, Okto believed that a win-win solution would eventually emerge. He said the national sports’ stakeholders had found common ground that would benefit everyone.

The games were initially to feature 47 sports. However, with the scrapping of the 10 sports, only 37 will be run — including fencing, athletics, badminton and karate — with 56 disciplines and 679 events. The organizers expect to welcome 6,442 athletes.

Previously, managements of the 10 sporting bodies had protested to KONI about their elimination from the games.

Indonesian Contract Bridge Association (Gabsi) secretary-general Purba Robert Mangapul Sianipar had earlier said the protest was solely based on the fact they had prepared their participants and that had involved financial resources and used up time.

Papua Governor Lukas Enembe said in September that the 20th PON would still take place in the province in 2020 as scheduled. So far, he claimed, the preparations for the event were about 50 percent complete.

Lukas also said that he would count on the Indonesian Olympic Committee (KOI), whose former chief Erick Thohir guaranteed that all equipment would be at the event on time. Erick handed over his KOI chief seat to Okto, who also serves as the ISSI chief.

Erick is the current state-owned enterprises minister, recently replacing Rini Soemarno after the creation of President Jokowi’s second-term Cabinet.

“Erick recommended that we purchase new equipment for the event. [The Papua administration] has allocated Rp 400 billion [US$28.1 million] of our budget for event equipment, while the Youth and Sports Ministry has reserved Rp 191 billion,” Lukas said.

Papua will only host the PON, while a set of other national-level competitions, namely the National Paralympic Games, National Games for Students and National Paralympic Games for Students, will be held in various other provinces.

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