The 2023 Asian Para Games Venue Surrounds Full Wind Hill, Archery Athletes Practice Without Meaning

Archery sports at the 2023 Asian Para Games. (Photo via Antara)

JAKARTA - Athletes from Indonesian archery will face major challenges at the 2023 Asian Para Games Hangzhou. The reason is, the match venue is in hilly areas which more or less affect the direction of the wind.

The athlete felt an uncertain wind situation when they carried out training at the Fuyang Yinhu Sports Center, Hangzhou, China, on Thursday, October 19 morning local time.

The training material includes field trials, cold and windy weather aclimitization.

With the venue contour hilly and the weather conditions that are much different from Solo, this will clearly affect performance. However, for archery athletes, this is not a tough challenge.

The coach of the Indonesian archery team, Idya Putra Harijanto, assessed that archery athletes are used to competing in hilly venues. To anticipate the pressure of the wind, the coach has given instructions for athletes to correct shots.

"Our athletes have experienced conditions like this when in Peparnas Papua which is also surrounded by hills and twisted winds. So the picture is more or less the same as here. God willing, this wind challenge can be overcome by our athletes," said Idya in the release of NPC Indonesia quoted Thursday, October 19.

From us, the coaching team instructed athletes to be ready to memorize the pressure of the wind to correct the shot. The correction is so that it doesn't always get stuck in the same or yellow shot. Because the wind pressure is quite different on the shooting line from the one on the cushion," he said.

Practice with competing countries such as China, the coaching team takes advantage of this moment to analyze the results of the opponent's training. Because apart from being the host, the Indonesian para-flavor team will also face Iran as its arch-rival.

"Earlier, several rivals from other countries practiced next to each other, so we can observe it, with the calculation that there is a balanced contribution, some are below. Hopefully we can get the balanced one through during the final," explained Idya.

In the 2023 Asian Para Games, the Indonesian archery contingent is strengthened by five athletes. They are expected to win medals according to the target, namely one silver and one bronze. The five names of athletes sent were Ken Swaguglang (Compound Men), Kholidin (Recurve Men), Setiawan (Recurve Men), Mahda Aulia (Recurve Women) and Wahyu Retno Wulandari (Recurve Women).

The Indonesian archery team will start competing on Monday, October 23, 2023. The Red and White team will compete in several numbers, namely the men's individual compound, men's individual recurve, men's double-recurve, mixed-recurve, women's individual recurve, and women's double-recurve.