PORTALJABAR, DISTRICT. GARUT - Acting Regent of Garut Barnas Adjidin released 155 Garut Regency contingents to compete in the 2024 West Java Regional Student Sports Week (POPWILDA).

The release was carried out at the Morning Call event at the Garut Regency Youth and Sports Service (Dispora) and Garut Regency Halalbihalal KONI, which was held at the Garut Regency Dispora Office, Friday (3/5/2024).

Barnas assesses that Garut Regency has potential in the sports sector, including its students, therefore he supports what Dispora and KONI Garut Regency are doing, by sending their best students to take part in the 2024 West Java POPWILDA.

"Therefore, we support what KONI is doing and what is also being done by the Sports Youth Service, hopefully in the future Garut Regency will be more advanced and achieve in the field of sports, (in this participation) we certainly have to have a target, so if my target is must be better than the previous target," he said.

Head of Garut Regency Dispora, Ade Hendarsyah, said that his party hopes that Garut Regency can qualify for the 8 sports being participated in at POPWILDA, so that it can continue to the POPDA event which is planned to be held next year.

"The target is for all the athletes in POPWILDA to qualify for POPDA, and POPDA will of course be part of POPNAS, God willing, Garut athletes can represent West Java to take part in POPNAS," he said.

He admitted that he was optimistic that the Garut Regency contingent could qualify for POPDA, because his party had been preparing these best athletes long ago, by inviting almost all students in Garut Regency to take part in the selection in the 8 sports.

"Well, we have talent from each sport, it (selection) is not enough for one day, (but) two to three days, we actually select it by talent scouts from each sport," he said.

Because the athletes taking part in POPWILDA are less than 17 years old, he hopes that the selected athletes can become ammunition for Garut Regency in the 2026 West Java Provincial Sports Week (Porprov).

"And this is also an important part of KONI's development, because on average the athletes we will field at Popwil are those we will prepare for Porprov 2026, they are only 17, right, because the maximum is 17, if in 2026 Porprov will be "In the next 2 years, so their age will be 19-20, which is the potential peak age," he said.

POPWILDA itself is a multi-event sports competition at the student level, as a selection event which will later be included in the Regional Student Sports Week (POPDA) at the West Java Provincial Level. The 155 contingent consists of 122 athletes, 18 coaches and 21 officials.

In this POPWILDA, Garut Regency is combined in region IV with 6 other regencies/cities in West Java, namely Bandung City, Bandung Regency, Tasikmalaya City, Tasikmalaya Regency, Ciamis Regency and Banjar City. The plan is that the POPWILDA region IV event will focus on the city of Bandung, starting from May 5 2024 to May 10 2024.

POPWILDA will compete in 8 sports, namely Basketball, Indoor Volleyball, Badminton, Football, Sepak Takraw, Pencak Silat, Field Tennis and Table Tennis.