Jakarta (ANTARA) - The Indonesian Rowing Sports Association (PODSI) is preparing 24 rowing athletes to achieve the target of qualifying for the 2024 Paris Olympics.
"After completing the 2022 Asian Games, the athletes only took a short break and then continued to prepare for the Olympic qualifications," PODSI Deputy Chairman Budiman Setiawan said here on Saturday.
He explained that the 24 rowing athletes are currently undergoing national centralized training and will take part in Olympic qualifiers in April in South Korea and in May in Switzerland.
The Indonesian rowing team will deploy 16 athletes in rowing and eight athletes in canoeing in the qualifying competition.
"The selected athletes are certainly the best, and starting in early 2024, we are adding more athletes to undergo training for competition," he said.
He said the 24 athletes align with the needs because the Indonesian team will not participate in all rowing sport branches contested in the Olympics.
He added that PODSI has evaluated the performances of rowing athletes in the Hangzhou Asian Games to prevent their weaknesses from being repeated during the Olympic qualifications.
"If there are one or two athletes who pass the qualifications, it is pretty good already," he said.
Previously, at the 2022 Asian Games, the Indonesian rowing team won three bronze medals but did not bag medals in canoe or kayak because the coaching team deployed their strongest rowers for the dragon boat, in which the team was more likely to win medals.
As a result, the Indonesian team managed to win one gold, four silvers, and one bronze in the Hangzhou Asian Games' dragon boat.
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