SEA Games Medalists Expresses Pride in Winning Medals
Indonesia successfully bagged gold medals in several
President Jokowi hands over cash bonuses at the Merdeka Palace, Jakarta, to athletes, coaches, and assistant coaches for winning medals at the SEA Games in Cambodia, Monday (06/05). (Photo by: PR of Cabinet Secretariat/Oji)
sports at the 32nd SEA Games in Cambodia. The athletes participating in the Games took pride in their achievements.
“We are so happy, proud, and very relieved to be part of the history because it is the first time the women’s basketball team won a gold medal after 46 years,” said Henny Sutjiono, captain of the women’s national basketball team, at the Merdeka Palace, Jakarta, Monday (06/05).
She went on to say that the success of winning gold medal was the result of hard work and intensive training.
“Just keep training, keep fighting, don’t give up. Finally, we can go step by step from winning bronze, then silver, and finally gold,” she said.
According to Henny, the Philippines is the most challenging opponent for the women’s basketball team since the country always managed to win gold medals. However, the Indonesian women’s basketball team managed to defeat them.
“The Philippines won gold medals twice in a row at SEA Games in the Philippines and Vietnam. So, the Philippines is the toughest team to beat because we also lost to the Philippines in the first game in Vietnam,” she added.
In addition, the captain of the hockey team Prima Rinaldi, also expressed happiness since the team bagged a gold medal at this year’s SEA Games after previously Indonesia only managed to win a silver at the 2017 SEA Games.
“I am really happy because we manage to win and make a new history for Indonesian hockey,” he said.
Prima said that he had mixed feelings when competing against Malaysia in the final round because he had to score more points.
“We were nervous when we played. We were worried when the score was 3-0; whoa, it’s difficult to score more, but we kept trying, fighting until we finally won. Wow, it was incredible,” he said.
On that occasion, Prima also expressed hope that in the future, hockey can have its own league in Indonesia to develop the potential of hockey athletes in the country.
“For hockey, I hope there will be a league of its own here, while Malaysia has already a league so the youth can join the league from a young age. In Indonesia, we only rely on Regional Sports Week (Porda), the National Games (PON), and the SEA Games, these are not enough,” he added.
Echoing the same sentiment, Vivi Indrawaty, an e-sport Mobile Legends athlete who also won a gold medal said that her achievement is expected to be a motivation for the next Indonesian e-sport athlete. (BPMI of Presidential Secretariat/AIT) (RIF/MMB)
