And now, all eyes are on Indonesia’s antidoping agency LADI (and the Youth and Sports Ministry as its direct supervisor) following the absence of Indonesia’s Red-and-White flag from the Ceres Arena in Aarhus, Denmark, at the historic victory on Oct. 17.

This year’s Thomas Cup glory was a bittersweet moment – not only for the successful badminton players, but also for most Indonesians. 

The shuttlers, led by Anthony Sinisuka Ginting, did their job by solidly reclaiming the trophy – the first time since 2002. They deserved the highest spot on the podium. I bet they had been dreaming of celebrating that rare achievement – maybe once in a lifetime – with the team, the shiny trophy, the national anthem blaring from the speakers, and for the cherry on top, a nice picture of it all with the national flag in the backdrop. Loud and proud.

That picture-perfect hope, though, crumbled to dust.

Just a week or so before the victory, the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) slapped Indonesia with a ban, barring the country from hoisting its flag in any sporting event as the agency had declared the country, along with Thailand and North Korea, noncompliant for not implementing effective dope-testing programs.

And, Indonesia, a badminton powerhouse with the most Thomas Cup titles, had been waiting for almost two decades to win the trophy back.

What perfect timing.

For at least the second time this year, the national shuttlers had to swallow a bitter pill, not because of something they did wrong, but because other parties did not do their job.

It was only few months ago when the entire Indonesian team was forced to pull out of the All England, a prestigious and the world’s oldest badminton tournament held annually in Birmingham, the United Kingdom, because of COVID-19 restriction regulations.

The Badminton World Federation issued a statement in the morning of March 18 Jakarta time, confirming that the UK’s National Health Service (NHS) was requiring a number of Indonesian players to self-isolate for 10 days after a person aboard the flight the team took from Istanbul, Turkey, to Birmingham tested positive for COVID-19.

When the federation issued the statement, several Indonesian shuttlers had won their first-round matches. However, due to the regulations, the whole Indonesian team had to quit the tournament.

It seemed like those arranging the shuttlers’ departure to Birmingham missed out in calculating the possibility of a COVID-19 contact during the trip, as Team Indonesia flew to the UK only five days before the tournament began.

Different scenarios, but a similar pattern seems to reemerge in the doping ban.

Sports minister Zainuddin Amali blamed the pandemic for LADI’s failure to submit the 2020 and 2021 doping test samples that were requested by the world’s antidoping body. Zainuddin claimed that with so few events held because of the pandemic restrictions, the national agency had difficulty in collecting samples for regular submissions.

The minister believed that samples from the recent National Games in Papua would meet the requirements.  

However, National Olympic Committee of Indonesia (NOC Indonesia) chief Raja Sapta Oktohari, who was appointed by the minister to lead a team to help the country reclaim its compliance status, said that LADI also had outstanding payments since 2018.

Thursday’s coordination meeting between the sports ministry and LADI revealed the agency’s pending payments include US$21,220-worth of invoices to Anti-Doping Lab Qatar, which date back to 2017.

Okto is reportedly already in Europe where he is scheduled to visit the International Olympic Committee (IOC) headquarters in Switzerland, after attending the NOCs’ meeting in Greece this weekend.

“We want to move fast, and try to finish things up by end of the year. But on the other hand, we’re looking at the year-end holiday season,” said Okto, whose job includes lobbying the IOC head of institutional relations and governance Jerome Poivey, according to CNN Indonesia.

As Okto does his part overseas, his runners – those dealing with the paperwork to meet WADA’s demands – will need to sprint to get things done.

As per WADA’s demand, Indonesia has to cooperate with another national antidoping agency to act as a supervisor for LADI in future works, including in conducting testing and hosting several scheduled international sporting events. The Japan Anti-Doping Agency (JADA) will likely take on the supervising duty.

For that, Okto’s team is working on meeting administrative requirements to earn the partnership with JADA.

LADI is also scheduled to have a first encounter with WADA regarding the ban early next month.

The WADA ban is effective for one year, ending on Oct. 8, 2022.

Due to the sanctions, Indonesia is not allowed to raise its flag at regional, continental or world competitions staged by major organizations, other than at the Olympic Games and Paralympic Games, for the next edition of those tournaments or until reinstatement, whichever is longer.

We also may not be awarded the right to host regional, continental or world championships, or events staged by major event organizations, for the entire period of noncompliance.

However, in cases where Indonesia had secured the right to host prior to the ban, such as the Indonesia Open badminton tournament, as well as MotoGP and Formula-E races, they are still good to go, except of course for the flag part.

I wish nothing but the best for Okto and his team, who have flown thousands of miles and are holding marathon meetings to clear up this unnecessary mess that we had swept under the rug.

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The author is a staff writer at The Jakarta Post.