The sports festival with 11 participating Southeast Asian nations, has become little more than a shabby race for medals and glory. The expensive event has moved further and further away from the aims of its founder Luang Sukhumnaipradit, former vice president of the Thai Olympic Committee, as a stepping stone to achievement in Asia and the world.
The 26th SEA Games in Palembang two years ago were an example of this. With 182 gold medals, Indonesia won the event for the 10th time. Seemingly, the stack of medals from the event costing more than Rp1 trillion showed that Indonesia was the strongest nation in the region.
But here's the irony. In the 577 events contested in Palembang, not a single Asian record was broken, let alone any world record. The biggest achievement was an unhappy one: the revelation that construction of the Athletes Village in Palembang was rife with corruption.
With its important position in the SEA Games Federation Office, Indonesia could propose that this poor performance be put back on the right track: only feature events that are included in the Olympics or Asian Games. That is if the Sports Ministry does not also find itself caught up in the overwhelming 'lust' for victory. This system of taking turns to win should be stopped.
Participants in the games, especially from the host nations, have had the right to include traditional sports. This has led to the inclusion of strange and weird events that are more games than sports. Vietnam included vovinam, a martial art using swords, clubs or fans. In Palembang, Indonesia won 12 medals for rollerskating.
These seedy tactics to win medals are becoming more worrying. For example, Indonesia stands to lose several gold medals from weightlifting in Naypyidaw because several events in which Indonesia dominates, have intentionally not been included by the host country.
The government should reexamine its funding priorities for the SEA Games. But it would be very unwise to cut half the budget when the athletes are at the training center and even about to depart for the SEA Games, which was what happened with the Indonesian contingent.
The sports minister should be ashamed when athletes say they have not received their monthly allowances, or are training with rudimentary equipment, or they are even having to buy their own vitamins and supplements. He should immediately correct this tragic state of affairs.
The chaos surrounding the government's sports budget, which involves the House of Representatives (DPR), is apparent in sports such as archery. Athletes are having to practice with broken bows! Yet this sport brought us four gold medals in Palembang, and a silver at the 1988 Seoul Olympics.
The Sports Ministry, and whoever the new sports minister will be in the new cabinet next year, needs to go back to focusing on Olympic sports. Besides not being as numerous as SEA Games events, Indonesia has an opportunity to win real glory in the international arena through sports such as weightlifting, badminton and swimming.
This would be better than piling up SEA Games gold medals without achieving anything in Asia or in the world.
"... that the joke was on (we)..."
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