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Sea Games: Practice makes perfect as Rifda pushed to reach new heights
Perfect score: Indonesian artistic gymnast Rifda Irfanaluthfi competes in women's vault at the 30th Southeast Asian (SEA) Games in Manila on Wednesday
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erfect score: Indonesian artistic gymnast Rifda Irfanaluthfi competes in women's vault at the 30th Southeast Asian (SEA) Games in Manila on Wednesday. Rifda won the gold medal. (AFP/Ted Aljibe)
Scouting for a gymnast with the potential to shine on the world stage is like trying to find a needle in a haystack.
Making this task ever more difficult, Indonesian gymnastics faces numerous other challenges.
When a coach finds such a talent, they face the even harder challenge of developing the athlete.
This the test gymnast-cum-coach Eva Butar Butar currently faces.
Beyond dealing with the limited financial support for the national training camp, Eva must also psychologically support her protégé, 2019 Southeast Asian (SEA) Games gold and silver medalist Rifda Irfanaluthfi.
The talented Rifda has the world at her feet. As a human, however, she has had her ups and downs, and has had to bounce back from the disappointment of broken promises.
“Several canceled training sessions dampened her desire to compete. [The government] once promised to sponsor her to undertake a six-month training program in the United States but it was later canceled. It broke her momentum,” Eva said in Manila on Sunday, on the sidelines of the SEA Games in the Philippines.
The 20-year-old Rifda is currently the brightest star in Indonesian gymnastics. She made her SEA Games debut in 2015 in Singapore, where she bagged a silver in the floor exercise. She was just 16 at the time.
Her star continued to rise at the 2016 National Games (PON) in Bandung, West Java, where she picked up three gold medals, surpassing her seniors.
In 2017, she stunned the nation again when she took home the balance beam gold medal from the Kuala Lumpur SEA Games. She beat a tough field dominated by the host nation, which was represented by renowned gymnasts like Farah Ann Abdul Hadi and Tan Ing Yueh.
On an even bigger stage and in front of her home crowd, Rifda shone at the 2018 Asian Games. With her agility, and the full support of the crowd, Rifda won a silver medal in the floor exercise, quenching the thirst for glory of the country’s gymnastics enthusiasts.
The silver medal remains her greatest accomplishment to date and has sparked hope she will become the country’s first ever gymnast to qualify for the Summer Olympics.
Shortly after Rifda was awarded her Asiad silver, coach Eva declared that her protégé was a chance to make the Olympics, but that she would need to take her routines to the next level to be able to compete with the world’s elite.
“To compete alongside world-class gymnasts, she needs to score at least 13 [points] per routine or better,” Eva said, highlighting four time Olympic gold medalist Simone Biles of the United States, who has an average score above 13 across all competitions.
By contrast, Rifda’s personal best in the floor exercise, achieved at the 2018 Asian Games, is 12.75.
After the Asian Games, Rifda set her sights on the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.
“Before Stuttgart [World Artistic Gymnastics Championships in 2019] I told her, ‘let’s do this again, step by step’. I try to boost her spirits. I try to stoke the fire inside her. I try to keep that flame burning,” Eva added.
Eva has laid out a training program for Rifda to follow to reach the Olympics. However, the gymnast’s preparations have been undermined by limited funding. As a result, Rifda could only train in the US for one-and-a-half months, beginning in August, which Eva said was far from ideal.
“Ideally, a gymnast needs three months to find her unique move. The first one-and-a-half months is only enough to adapt,” Eva said. A unique move with a high level of difficulty is necessary for a gymnast to score maximum points.
To make matters worse, Rifda also suffered a groin injury at the 2019 World Artistic Gymnastics Championships in Stuttgart, Germany, in October. The Stuttgart event was a qualifier for the Tokyo Games, but Rifda failed to secure a spot.
“[Rifda’s training program [for Stuttgart] was supposed to start in 2017, but things did not go as planned [due to financial limitations].
“If my plans were realized, Rifda would have learned a new, more difficult move for her routine, which would have netted her a higher score. The 2018 Asiad [medal] would just be her intermediate target.
“Rifda was supposed to peak during the Stuttgart event […] because it was an Olympic qualifier,” said Eva, adding that 20 places at the Tokyo Olympics had been up for grabs in Stuttgart.
Despite her hardships, Indonesia’s rising star stole the limelight at this year’s SEA Games, breaking through Malaysia’s domination.
Rifda, who is pursuing a sport science degree at the Jakarta State University, won the women’s vault gold to go with three silvers in the individual all-around, floor exercise and uneven bar events.
“I am grateful for these results. But if I was asked whether I was satisfied or not, my answer would be no. My personal target was to win the gold in the floor exercise, which is my favorite event. But it appears that time has yet to come,” said Rifda.
Failing at Stuttgart has not closed her path to the 2020 Olympics.
However, Rifda only has one more chance, the 2020 Continental Championships. To qualify for the Olympics, Rifda will have to outclass a field of talented competitors, including world class athletes from North Korea and China.
As the coach, Eva said it was now down to Rifda and how hard she was willing to fight to reach her Olympic dream.
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