Lalu Muhammad Zohri is phenomenal. Not many of our citizens can compare to him in terms of achieving great things on behalf of the nation. Different from Lalu, Franklin Ramses Burumi\'s career journey in the athletic world was fairly short.
By
·3 minutes read
GETTY IMAGES FOR IAAF/CHARLIE CROWHURST
Lalu Muhammad Zohri of Indonesia receives his gold medal during the medal ceremony for the men\'s 100m on day three of The IAAF World U20 Championships on July 12, 2018 in Tampere, Finland.
Lalu Muhammad Zohri is phenomenal. Not many of our citizens can compare to him in terms of achieving great things on behalf of the nation.
Different from Lalu, Franklin Ramses Burumi\'s career journey in the athletic world was fairly short. Burumi won the men\'s 100-meter gold medal at the 2011 SEA Games at the age of 20. However, at the 2012 National Sports Week (PON) in Riau, Burumi only won a silver medal while struggling with a knee injury in a traffic accident in Jayapura after the SEA Games.
The achievement of Burumi and Lalu, who is 18-year-old, is indeed quite encouraging. However, we should not be complacent. Do not be like Burumi; all of us must be willing to go along Lalu’s journey to achieve even greater things. Moreover, Lalu just won a gold medal in Tampere, Finland, with a fantastic time of 10.18 seconds.
Within less than a month, Lalu will compete in the arena of the Asian Games. We do not expect Lalu to dedicate any medal. If he can clock in the same time as in Tampere, then that is pretty good.
At least two sprinters competing at the Asian Games have recorded better times than Lalu. First, Femi Ogunode, 27, from Qatar, was the 2014 Asian Games gold medalist in Incheon, South Korea, with a time of 9.93 seconds. Second, Chinese sprinter Su Bingtian, 28, holds the Asian record of 9.91 seconds, which was achieved in the World Challenge Meeting at the World Challenge Meeting at Madrid, Spain, 2018.
We know that sharpening speed is not easy. To beat the national record held by Suryo Agung Wibowo (10.17 seconds), Lalu has to practice harder. To achieve a clock-in time of 0.01 seconds, it takes practice and time. It would be amazing if it could be achieved at the Asian Games next month.
GETTY IMAGES FOR IAAF/CHARLIE CROWHURST
Lalu Muhammad Zohri of Indonesia (left) in action during the final of the men\'s 100-m on day two of The IAAF World U20 Championships on July 11, 2018 in Tampere, Finland.
We only know Lalu was able to win the gold medal, but we do not know how Lalu practiced to be able to achieve it.
In many things, we frequently just want to see success and criticize failure. We never learn to fix the problems so that the success story will not just be a mere coincidence. At a time when there is gifted talent, that is when success is achieved.
Talking about sports, we should have a discussion about sustainable coaching. It is not enough to merely praise success. We must fix the program, patterns and the application of sports science.
It is no secret that a number of trainers in Indonesia train athletes based on their experience as athletes themselves. As a result, the accomplishment of the athletes cannot be maximized. In the case of Lalu, for example, the executive board of the Indonesia Athletics Federation (PB PASI) brought in coach Hary Mara from the US.
PB PASI Secretary-General Tigor Tanjung said Mara was one of the world\'s best athletic trainers. "With Mara, the exercises [in the athletic training] have been changed. If you look at the technique [in running] Lalu was good in Finland, that\'s the result of the training," he said.
