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t has been eight years since an Indonesian judoka last competed at the summer Olympics. At the London Games in 2012, Putu Wiradamungga was knocked out in the second round by Laszlo Csoknyai of Hungary.

At that time, Putu was a breath of fresh air as he strived to continue the legacy left by his predecessor Krisna Bayu. Before Putu, Krisna was the last Indonesian judoka to compete at the Olympics where he managed to qualify in the 1996, 2000 and 2004 tournaments.

With the Tokyo Olympics’ qualifying round nearing an end, the Indonesian Judo Association (PJSI) can only hope for the miracle of a wild card given by the International Judo Federation (IJF) — looking at the fact that Indonesian judokas are without much hope in the current race to a Tokyo place.

In order to qualify for the Olympics in July and August, the national judokas must make the top-18 in the ranking.

As of Wednesday, Indonesian judokas only managed to get in the top 200 with Dita Ananda, who competes in the women’s -48 kilogram category, ranked 163th. The 2019 Southeast Asian (SEA) Games gold medalist, Ni Kadek Anny Pandini in the women’s -57 kg, trailed at 176th.

Things are even gloomier in the men’s category with Indonesian judokas only making the top-300s ranking.

The Tokyo qualification period will end on May 30.

With only four months left, the PJSI does not seem to have a clear pathway to boosting its athletes’ rankings.

PJSI secretary-general Bachtiar Utomo said he still needed to study the 2020 tournament calendar before dispatching athletes to compete.

On another note, the federation is also set to start the national training camp in April. In the meantime, athletes are allowed to train by themselves.

“Based on the rankings, it seems very hard for our athletes to qualify. But if we receive the [wild card], we will send our best athlete,” he told journalists in Jakarta on Tuesday.

“Nevertheless, we must not be pessimistic as we managed to exceed expectations at the 2019 SEA Games, where we passed the two gold medals target,” he said, adding that Anny would likely be the strongest candidate from Indonesia to receive a wild card.

The Indonesian judo team brought home four gold medals from the Philippines Games, trailing overall champion Thailand, which bagged seven golds.

Indonesian judokas dominated the 2015 and 2017 SEA Games, collecting the most golds to become the superior team in the biennial event’s judo tournament. The Red-and-White judokas, however, struggled in the higher-level tournaments, such as in the worlds and the Asian level, including the 2018 Asian Games at home, where they lost.

In order to improve the quality of the national team, the federation set up a knowledge-sharing session with the Kodokan Judo Institute Japan. The session was to welcome two coaches from the institute to train local coaches in a week-long seminar in Ciloto, West Java, starting on Wednesday.

“The partnership also includes an opportunity for local coaches to get the knowledge in person from the best at the Kodokan Institute, which is the center of judo training in Japan,” Bachtiar said.

Such a partnership is part of the Judo Exchange Program, which is initiated by the Japan Foundation Asia Center and the Kodokan Institute in collaboration with Southeast Asian countries. The program has been run since 2017.

Former Japanese judoka Hirofumi Otsuji, a coach with the Kodokan Institute, said he would support the Indonesian judo team with the hope of seeing an Indonesian representative qualifying for Tokyo.

“We have seen the performance of Indonesian judokas during the 2019 SEA Games. The quality of Indonesian athletes is actually good and they have potential [to improve],” he said.