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Indonesia’s fortunes saw little improvement during Day 2 of the Asian Youth Games.

Its young athletes have struggled to win medals or even qualify for the finals from their respective heats in Singapore.

Indonesia’s one bright spot came from Gede Eka Agustiawan and Ade Chandra Rachmawan in boys beach volleyball.

The duo swept Vladislav Pustynnikov and Sergey Bogatu of Kazakhstan 2-0. On the girls side, though, Dhita Yuliana and Dhanis Evlina lost 2-0 to Bakhtygul Samalikova and Lyubov Bogatu of Kazakhstan.

Indonesian Olympic Committee chairwoman Rita Subowo expressed concern over the country’s poor performance.

I hope these bad results will open up the sport federations’ minds that we are way behind other countries in youth development,” she said. “We have to work together to overhaul the athletes’ development because if not, we’ll be left further behind.”

Maria Natalie Dinda reached the girls 3-meter springboard diving finals, only to finish sixth. Andriyan came in fifth after reaching the boys platform diving finals.

Dennis Ranova, who was part of Indonesia’s bronze-medal winning bowling team at the 2007 Southeast Asian Games, struggled under the weight of expectations. The 15-year-old, one of the country’s best hopes for a medal, took 20th in boys singles on Wednesday.

His teammates fared no better. Adhiguna Widiantoro finished 23rd, with Fachri Ibnu Askar taking 24th and Muhammad Iqbal finishing 47th.

Ika Kartika finished 13th in the girls 10-meter air rifle.

The Indonesian girls 3-on-3 basketball team lost 34-21 to Thailand in their Group A game at Anglican High School.

The team was scheduled to face Malaysia today, but because the Malaysians withdrew from the Games, Indonesia will receive a 33-0 forfeit win and a day of rest before playing Jordan on Friday. The Malaysian government withdrew all but two of its athletes over H1N1 flu virus concerns.

Antara, JG