
Nguyến Thị Oanh runs within the 2021 Nationwide Athletics Championship’s girls’s 3,000m steeplechase occasion final December. Oanh is to defend three gold medals on the coming SEA Video games in Hà Nội. — Picture courtesy of Triệu Linh
HÀ NỘI — Việt Nam’s athletic staff may have a busy yr in 2022 with two massive duties of defending its prime place on the coming thirty first Southeast Asian (SEA) Video games and profitable a gold on the nineteenth Asian Video games (ASIAD).
Việt Nam dethroned Thailand to set its domination in the SEA Video games’ athletics in two latest editions. Because the hosts of the upcoming Video games, the Vietnamese athletes will tackle excessive stress to finish their goal particularly within the circumstance of the pandemic.
“Our athletes have gone by means of a yr of challenges and difficulties due to COVID-19, which has strongly affected our plan of coaching and competing,” mentioned Nguyễn Mạnh Hùng, basic secretary of the Việt Nam Athletics Division of the Việt Nam Sports activities Administration.
“It’s clear that we are going to endure excessive stress because the hosts. It forces our athletes and coaches to work tougher and extra actively. This Tết (Lunar New Yr), my 75 opponents and virtually 30 trainers will not relaxation. They are going to preserve coaching at 5 nationwide centres. We’re decided to defend our No 1 place in ASEAN.”
The Hà Nội SEA Video games will see 47 athletic occasions. It’s anticipated that Vietnamese runners will safe no less than 16 golds, as many as they did within the 2019 Video games within the Philippines, to keep up their place as the main staff within the sport.
In line with Hùng, the golden faces might be Nguyễn Thị Oanh (in girls’s 1,500m, 5,000m, 3,000m steeplechase), Quách Thị Lan (girls’s 400m, 400m hurdles) and Phạm Thị Hồng Lệ (girls’s 10,000m).
He additionally talked about some younger athletes who may vie for titles in different occasions. Huỳnh Thị Mỹ Tiên simply received a nationwide championship’s girls’s 100m hurdles with the results of 13.59sec, higher than the 2019 SEA Video games gold medal time. Phạm Quỳnh Giang within the girls’s excessive leap simply handed 1.81m, as excessive as SEA Video games gold medallist, to prime the nationwide championship.

Huỳnh Thị Mỹ Tiên is predicted to win Việt Nam a title within the girls’s 100m hurdles occasion on the upcoming thirty first SEA Video games after her sturdy efficiency on the 2021 Nationwide Athletics Championship final December. — Picture courtesy of Triệu Linh
Different athletes who starred eventually month’s nationwide championship are Khuất Phương Anh (girls’s 800m, 1,500m) and Trần Văn Đảng (males’s 800m, 1,500m) and Lê Tiến Lengthy (males’s 3,000m steeplechase).
Athletes may have a number of exams together with a pre-SEA Video games match in April. The strongest opponents will have their names within the last record for the SEA Video games on Might 12-23.
4 months after the SEA Video games, those that have good ends in Hà Nội might be chosen to participate within the nineteenth ASIAD in Hangzhou, China.
On the earlier Video games in 2018, Việt Nam received two gold medals by means of lengthy jumper Bùi Thị Thu Thảo, and Quách Thị Lan within the 400m hurdles.
“The duties to defend two titles are tough. Thảo received her medal after a leap of 6.55m. Within the December nationwide championship, she nonetheless took gold however jumped solely 6.27m after a two-year relaxation with her household. At the moment, many Asian athletes have jumped higher than 6.60m. A few of them handed 6.85m,” mentioned Hùng.
“In the meantime, Lan will face ‘imported’ runners from Center East international locations. In a latest match in China, we noticed a runner who’s youthful however runs quicker than Lan. Subsequently, we’ve got made a plan to ship Lan to coach in Europe and compete within the US. She may even obtain sturdy assist when it comes to vitamin and bodily care. It’s all to win ASIAD golds.”

Trần Văn Đảng celebrates his males’s 800m occasion win at the 2021 Nationwide Athletics Championship final December. — Picture courtesy of Triệu Linh
In March, German skilled Karl Gunter Lange might be again to Việt Nam to assist the athletic staff.
Hùng mentioned that Lange, who’s an skilled coach with greater than 20 years of working in dozens of nations, may even participate in teaching for the runners in middle- and long-distance squads.
Lange labored in Việt Nam in 2010-11 as an advisor. Along with his assist, Vietnamese runner Trương Thanh Hằng made a powerful efficiency with two silvers within the girls’s 800m and 1,500m within the 2010 ASIAD in China. — VNS