Jakarta: The 1992 Barcelona Olympic women’s singles gold medal winner Susi Susanti has been appointed to replace Rexy Mainaky as the Indonesian Badminton Association’s (PBSI) new high performance director for the period of 2016 until 2020.
Wiranto who was elected as the new president of PBSI at the end of October, has decided to revamp PBSI to restore Indonesian to their glory days in badminton by re-organizing PBSI.
He has also chosen Susanti’s husband, Alan Budi Kusuma who won men’s singles gold medal at the 1992 Barcelona Olympic to take charge of the sponsorship division.
In addition to nurturing and developing more women’s singles player, Susanti was also tasked with creating strong Indonesian men’s singles players. She has a month to find suitable coaching staff to join her team.
“Indonesia’s women’s division is in a slump, and I’d like to do something to start rejuvenating that department using my long-term program, without neglecting other departments such as men’s singles, doubles and mixed doubles,” said Susanti.
“Of course, we’ll continue to maintain our success in the men’s doubles and mixed doubles departments,” added Susanti.
The 2004 Athens Olympics gold medalist Taufik Hidayat was also selected as sport development expert to help develop the women’s division and run the badminton training camp.
Ricky Subagja who won the 1996 Atlanta Olympics gold medalist together with Rexy Mainaky was paired with former national shuttler Carmelita to work on public relations and media affairs.
Meanwhile, Rexy Mainaky who lost his job as the high performing director of PBSI, has yet to find a new position for himself.
“I will be looking for new challenges, my job to restore Indonesian’s tradition by winning gold medal in Olympic has been accomplished, and it’s time for me to move on,” said Mainaky.
Indonesian shuttlers Tontowi Ahmad/Liliyana Natsir brought back mixed doubles Olympic gold medal last August in Rio. That was Indonesia’s first Olympic gold since Hendra Setiawan/Markis Kido won the men’s doubles champion at the 2008 Beijing Olympic.
