
The Papuan rowing team, as one of the major contributors of medals in various national and international sporting events hope to immediately enter the training camp stage to prepare for the National Sports Week (PON) event which will be held later this year.
“We are awaiting instructions from the National Sports Committee of Indonesia Papua (KONI Papua) to start the training camp, if the budget is already available. Well, we hope to be able to start training camp soon. Our athletes are currently still training independently. They have not been gathered either. To this day our athlete mess is still empty, no athletes have been accommodated,” said Vines Kambay as Papua’s rowing coach on Wednesday (5/4/2023).
The coach reasoned that in order to attain achievements would require his athletes to have a long enough preparation, both physical, tactical, and to adjust nutritional intake so that rowing could qualify for PON XXI in Aceh-North Sumatera.
“It should be faster so that our athletes can quickly enter the dormitory and prepare for pre-PON and not miss the training programme. Our preparations have to be long enough, because our athletes have a lot to attend to,” he said.
“It might be possible for KONI to start our training camp faster, so that preparations for the pre-PON can be fulfilled, such as the nutritional, physical aspects, so that in this pre-PON we do not lag far behind in order to qualify for PON XXI,” he continued.
Considering rowing is one of the leading sports to potentially win medals for the Papuan contingent, the coach hopes that KONI Papua can prioritise rowing to finalise preparations in the remaining time which is getting shorter.
“Previously, the rowing team always prepared for training camp earlier, but why now has it not begun at all, and only a month left to start pre-PON. If we look on paper, rowing should be prioritised first. Pre PON will determine whether we qualify or not, so we must prepare in advance,” he said.
Source: https://seputarpapua.com/view/jadi-cabor-prioritas-dayung-papua-berharap-atlet-segera-tc.html