Success In PON Papua, Bassam Aims For The 2024 Paris Olympics

The Paris Olympics became Bassam's target after his success at the Papua PON (Photo: Antara)

JAKARTA - The U-58 taekwondo kyorugi gold achievement at the Papua National Sports Week (PON) made Muhammad Bassam Raihan's motivation multiplied and even immediately targeted a ticket to the 2024 French Olympics as the main target to achieve.

"To be able to appear in the Olympics is the dream of all athletes and my target in the future is to win a gold medal there", Bassam said after receiving the medal at the Kayu Batu Aviation Polytechnic GOR, Jayapura, as reported by Antara.

The hope of the 19-year-old athlete is not without reason, considering that the athlete who contributed the first gold medal for the DKI Jakarta contingent from taekwondo is one of Indonesia's mainstays to face several international championships.

Although relatively young, the athlete who lives in South Tangerang, Banten was once the backbone of the Indonesian contingent at the 2019 SEA Games in Manila, Philippines. At that time Bassam was able to present a bronze medal for the Red and White contingent.

After the SEA Games, the athlete who is now studying at the Jakarta State University (UNJ) has become one of the residents of the National Training Center. And even had time to try to chase tickets to the Tokyo Olympics even though in the end the target of qualifying had not been achieved.

"Now there is enough time to catch a ticket to the Paris Olympics. That's why I will continue to prepare myself to go through the stages of getting a ticket", Bassam emphasized.

It also admits that the struggle to the Olympics is not easy. It requires careful preparation and maximum support from many parties, starting from families, big sports officials to the government.

For this reason, Bassam admitted that he would not be careless in carrying out activities, and to achieve the target he would always carry out the program from the coach. Not only practice but also to determine which championship to follow.

"After this, I don't know. Next year there will actually be the Vietnam SEA Games, but everything is still waiting for developments", said the athlete who successfully won gold in his first PON.

Bassam admitted that to achieve what he wanted was not only the result of hard training but also the support from his closest people, especially his family, coaches, and fellow athletes who all the time gave each other encouragement and motivation.