World junior champ Zohri becomes face of Indonesia Games

JAKARTA: Just over a year ago, Indonesian sprinter Lalu Muhammad Zohri could barely afford running shoes and was pretty much unknown outside his small village on the eastern island of Lombok. That all changed in 10.18 seconds earlier this month when the 18-year-old orphan produced a blistering finish to beat the cream of the planet’s junior sprinting talent in the 100 meters final at the under-20 world championships in Finland.

Indonesia had never previously had a finalist at the championships, let alone a world junior champion, and Zohri has quickly become burdened with the hopes of a nation ahead of their hosting of the Asian Games. Zohri’s sudden rise to the status of household name in the southeast Asian nation of some 260 million people is clearly still something of a shock to the quietly spoken teenager. “It was beyond my imagination to be invited to meet the government, the ministers and the President,” he told Reuters during a break in his training at Jakarta’s Gelora Bung Karno Stadium. “I feel very proud and thankful.”

Indonesia’s President Joko Widodo has praised Zohri as a “collective inspiration to the nation’s athletes to achieve gold” at the Asian Games and has ordered ministers to renovate his humble woven bamboo home. The teenager, though, is not confident about his chances of winning another gold at the Asian Games, which will take place in Jakarta and Palembang from August 18 to September 2. “I think (the Asian Games) will be tough because the competition is tight and I’m going against seniors who are more experienced and can finish the run under 10 seconds,” said Zohri, adding that his focus would be on preparing for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.

Zohri lowered his personal best from 10.25 seconds in winning his world title in Tampere, leaving him only one hundredth of a second off Suryo Agung Wibowo’s Indonesia mark of 10.17. To win gold in the 100 meters on the Gelora Bung Karno Stadium track next month, however, he is likely to have to beat Nigerian-born Qatari Femi Ogunade and Chinese sprinters Su Bingtian and Xie Zhenye, all of whom have run under 10 seconds. “Lalu is a tough competitor. Given how fast he is running at 18, with training he has the capacities to break the 10-second barrier,” said US coach Harry Harra, who trained decathlon world record holder Ashton Eaton and is advising the Indonesia Athletics team.

Indonesia Athletics Association chairman Bob Hasan agrees, but is not sure the Asian Games is the right stage for such a fledgling talent. “We are still deciding with Lalu’s coaches whether it might be better to have him run in the junior Asian Games,” Hasan said. “He is still very young. We nearly didn’t get the visa for him to go to Finland. We had to provide him with a guarantee because his parents are no more.” Hasan said Zohri, who lost his parents when he was a child, had struggled with the food in Finland, leading to the Indonesian Ambassador driving two hours a day to bring over rice and home cooked meals for him.—Reuters