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Indonesia looks at odds of sending more athletes to Tokyo Olympics
Indonesia has only secured three slots for the 2020 Olympics, namely for Lalu Muhammad Zohri in track and field, Riau Ega Agatha in archery and Vidya Rafika in shooting.
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Bahrain’s Andrew Fisher, Indonesia’s Lalu Muhammad Zohri and Taipei’s Wang Wei-hsu compete in the men’s 100-meter sprint at the Asian Athletics Championships at Khalifa International Stadium, Doha, on April 22. (Reuters/Ibraheem Al Omari)
The Indonesian National Olympic Committee (NOC) aims to send more national athletes to the Summer Olympics in Tokyo next year.
Indonesia has only secured three slots for the 2020 Olympics, namely for Lalu Muhammad Zohri in track and field, Riau Ega Agatha in archery and Vidya Rafika in shooting.
In 2016, Indonesia sent 28 athletes to compete in seven sports, including badminton and weightlifting, at the Rio Olympics in Brazil. For next year’s edition, the NOC aims to send more, considering Indonesia has a chance of qualifying in weightlifting, badminton, swimming and sports climbing.
NOC secretary-general Teuku Arlan Prakasa said the committee had formed a team of analysts to study its athletes’ potential.
“The team will start working in January 2020 to study the odds of us sending more athletes. Then it will work on the medal potential, before going into the detail with regard to the gold medal potential,” Arlan said Sunday as quoted by Antara news agency.
Indonesian athletes will have until April next year to collect Olympic points. Nevertheless, the NOC also hopes some of its athletes will receive wild cards, which are opportunities given by Olympic stakeholders for unqualified athletes to compete in the Games.
Besides forming the team of analysts and pushing sports federations to develop, NOC Indonesia chief Raja Sapta “Okto” Oktohari said he would also work on the chef de mission team for the Indonesian contingent in Tokyo.
“At the moment, we are still in direct communications [with the respective federations].
“However, once the chef de mission team is formed, it will act as the main hub for us to communicate with the federations as we will also supervise the [Olympic] qualifiers,” he said, adding that the NOC was waiting for the Youth and Sports Ministry’s approval of the chef de mission team.
