Hangzhou, The Indonesia Post – The Indonesian dragon boat team on Friday won the gold medal in the men’s 1000m at the Hangzhou Asian Games thanks to strategic maturity and patience which helped them break the dominance of the Chinese team.
At the Wenzhou Dragon Boat Center arena, Andri Agus Mulyana and his friends cleverly held back before attacking in the final stage and finished the long distance race with a record of 4:31.135.
After starting to cross the 250m point, Indonesia was left behind in fifth place before improving their position by advancing to second place, trailing China who led half way.
In the last 500m, Indonesia slowly but surely caught up to the home team who led the race from the start to the last stroke of the Indonesian rowers carrying the dragon boat in a fast race and crossing the finish line 0.047 seconds earlier than China.
The home team had to admit defeat by a very narrow margin to be satisfied with the silver medal, while Myanmar was entitled to bronze in third place.
“The strategy in the race, we don’t want to be provoked at the start because our enemy China is of course very strong. They tried to test us, but we remained calm,” said Andri in response to Antara’s question after the race.
“We did according to the coach’s instructions, we executed at the finish and thank God we were able to catch up with China.
“This is of course thanks to the cooperation of the coaches, administrators and all of our friends.”
Andri also revealed that the men’s dragon boat team received additional enthusiasm after being met directly by the General Chairperson of PB PODSI Basuki Hadimuljono the evening before today’s final match.
“It provides strong motivational support to us,” he added.
Meanwhile the women’s team presented a silver medal in the 1000m event after losing almost four seconds to the Chinese women’s team.
The gold medal was the highest achievement for the Indonesian dragon boat team at the Hangzhou Asian Games after all the events were completed.
Previously on Wednesday (4/10), Indonesia secured a silver medal in the women’s 200m dragon boat and a bronze medal in the men’s 200m.
Then on Thursday Indonesia took home two silver medals in the men’s and women’s 500m events.
“We are all very happy because this is our first gold medal at the 2022 Asian Games. I want to thank all the Indonesian people for their support and prayers,” said dragon boat team manager Edy Suyono.
China emerged as the overall champion of the 2022 Asian Games dragon boat event with a collection of five gold and one silver.
Meanwhile, Indonesia had a sweet note when the dragon boat event was contested for the first time at the Asian Games. In 2010 in Guangzhou the Indonesian men’s team was dominant in winning three gold medals in the 250m, 500m and 1,000m events.
Meanwhile, the women’s team still lost to China and had to be satisfied with three silverware in the three events.
At the 2018 Asian Games, the Indonesian dragon boat team’s performance declined without winning a gold medal. They took home two silvers from the men’s 1,000m and women’s 200m plus one bronze from the men’s 500m. (mhn/bbs)
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