Indonesia has slashed its Asian Indoor Games team by more than 80 percent to stay within tight budgets.

The Southeast Asian nation plans to send just 20 competitors to Hanoi for the Oct. 30-Nov. 8 multi-sport event — down from a team of 112 at the 2007 Games in Macau.

“We can only provide 2 billion rupiah ($200,000) to send a contingent to the Asian Indoor Games and 2 billion for the Islamic Solidarity Games,” Indonesian Olympic committee (KOI) sports development chief Djoko Pramono said.

“The SEA Games is our top priority, so we’re focusing most of our resources there,” he told the Jakarta Globe.

The money would only send 20 athletes to Hanoi, he said.

“But if there are sports federations who want to send their athletes with their own money, we really appreciate that and will support them,” he added.

“We can only provide them team jerseys, and their federations should provide return flight tickets and a $50 daily stipend.”

The Asian Indoor Games, inaugurated in Thailand in 2005, features sports with television broadcasting potential that are not included in the Asian Games and Winter Asian Games and are not Olympic sports.

“We’re in a dilemma here,” Pramono said.

“If we don’t send athletes, then we’ll have a bad name in the Asian sports scene. But we also don’t have a big budget. So we just do our best to participate in all of those events.”

Source: Reuters

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