Susi Susanti wants authorities to take notice of Indonesian shuttlers’ failure in London Olympics
Indonesia, who was tagged as dark horse in 2012 London Olympics, could not fetch even a single medal and former Olympian Susi Susanti urged that the concerned authorities should take notice of this debacle and do something on an emergency basis.
National squad was consisted of nine shuttlers and all of them crashed out in disgraceful manner. The Mixed Doubles pair Tontowi Ahmad-Liliyana Natsir remained the most successful as they reached semi-finals before losing the bronze medal match.
Indonesia bagged three medals, gold, silver and bronze, in 2008 Beijing Olympics but this year they disappointed and drew a blank.
Former international Susi Susanti believes this is high time for Indonesian Badminton Association (PBSI) and the badminton fraternity to think and take some necessary steps to avoid such failures in the future.
She said, “Every stakeholder, be it the PBSI [Indonesian Badminton Association], the government or the badminton community, must dig deeper to know why this happened.”
In recently concluded London Games, prime shuttlers like former World and Olympic Champion Taufik Hidayat and World Number seven Simon Santoso were supposed to shoulder their responsibility but they failed to lift the burden of expectations and knelt down.
The disqualification of Women’s Doubles team Greysia Polii-Meiliana Jauhari was the last nail in the coffin during this shameful outing.
Meanwhile, China swept the table and created history by clinching all of five gold medals in badminton event of the 2012 Olympics.
The Barcelona Olympics gold medallist Susi is not ready to accept this downfall as she criticised the governing authorities and stated that Indonesia is stumbling while other countries are making progress with incredible pace.
She also added that PBSI should increase talent pool and groom young shuttlers rather than depending on the veterans.
She said, “We are going nowhere while other countries are running very fast. We had our days of success. Now we have to realize that we have been left far behind and need to work really hard to fix things up, starting from athlete development.”
Later, Youth and Sports Minister Andi Mallarangeng also expressed his sorrow and declared that Indonesia’s failure to win gold medal in London Olympics is just because they depend only on badminton and do not give much attention to other sports.
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