Indonesia is working on all possible ways of finding success at the 2032 Summer Olympic Games by building a world-class training facility on the outskirts of Jakarta.

The country officially submitted its bid to host the quadrennial event in February last year, receiving a response from International Olympic Committee (IOC) president Thomas Bach.

With the bid in place, Indonesia, which hosted a successful 2018 Asian Games, is now working on training its athletes in the hopes that it ups its gold medal haul in 2032.

Its first two Olympic gold medals were earned at the 1992 Barcelona Games. The country has won one gold medal at each Games since, except for the 2012 London Games where it failed to win any gold. All gold medals came in
badminton.

Indonesian National Olympic Committee (NOC) chief Raja Sapta “Okto” Oktohari said he had a list of candidate sites for the facility, which would not be located far from Jakarta.

“We will coordinate with the government to build the world-class training facility,” Okto said in a statement.

The decision to build the facility, he said, was based on his visits to China, Japan, South Korea, France, the Netherlands and Australia, which often performed well at Olympic Games.

“The training facilities [in those countries] have contributed significantly to their athletes’ performance. Therefore, we also need to have one,” added the businessman, who also chairs the Indonesian Cycling Association (ISSI).

In terms of funding, Okto said he had thought of several schemes, including full funding through the private sector, the government or a private-public partnership.

“We need to work on [the facility] now. I also have to make sure that the facility will be free of floods, which could hamper the athletes’ training program,” he added.

Okto’s action had shown Indonesia was serious about its 2032 Olympic bid, according to sports observer Djoko Pekik Irianto.

Djoko, the former Youth and Sports Ministry deputy of sports achievement, told The Jakarta Post recently the ideal time for a country to develop its athletes — from prospects to champions — was between eight and 10 years.

To win more gold medals, he suggested that the country focus on individual sports that offered a lot of medals, such as those in athletics. “We’ve always been talking about focusing on Olympic sports, but nothing has been realized,” he said.

The professor in sports science said Indonesia would need to invest Rp 4 billion (US$289,726) per athlete per year to develop them into a world champion.

Djoko said the 2024 Games would be a perfect starting point for the country to gear up to win more gold at the 2032 Games.

Indonesia needed to work gradually in training and managing its athletes, starting by maintaining what it already had, while also aggressively looking for future talents, Djoko suggested.

“We need a constructive format,” he said. “[…] The 2024 Games could be the time for us to start setting a realistic target.

“For example, now we have [Lalu Muhammad] Zohri. We need to push him by sending him off to train in Canada or the United States,” he said of the sprinter, who was the first Indonesian and Asian male to win any medal at the 2018 World Athletics U20 Championships, once called the 2018 IAAF World U20 Championships.

Djoko said Indonesia had the potential to win four golds at the 2024 Paris Olympics with promising performances by Zohri as well as its badminton players, weightlifters and sport climbers on the world stage. The Paris Games are to feature the speed category in sport climbing, a competition in which Indonesia already has a world champion, Aries Susanti Rahayu.

Djoko said a lack of persistence had been Indonesia’s main obstacle in reaching sporting glory.

“We’ve been good at making plans [but we often fail to implement them], because we get bored easily,” he added.