SEA Games 2009 Singapore

Events Vietnam hopes to win medals

There are quite a lot of sporting events Vietnam hopes to win medals, including boxing (16 sets of medals), Muay Thai (14 sets of medals). These are two events Vietnam once brought home gold medals at the Asian Championship but has not won the title at any Southeast Asian championship.

Although the Vietnamese athletes once won golds in sepak takraw, petanque, volleyball, football at Asian Games, it is very difficult for them to defeat the Thai athletes at this games.

Four events Vietnam are less likely to win golds

These are badminton, golf, table tennis and tennis.

Golf is the only event at the 25th SEA Games Vietnam will join through the fund from the Vietnam Golf Association. With the current level of the Vietnamese golfers, it will take a long time to be able to win medals in this event.

In badminton, Nguyen Tien Minh is among the world’s top 10 best players but it is very difficult for the Vietnamese badminton star to win over his higher ranking rivals from Malaysian and Indonesia.

In table tennis, since Singapore granted the Singaporean citizenship to series of top players from China, wining a bronze has become very valuable for Vietnam.

Apart from four events: badminton, golf, table tennis and tennis, the Vietnamese Sports Delegation is able to win gold medals in all 21 events it will compete out of 25 events at the 25th SEA Games hosted by Laos.

Vietnam’s strength is martial arts

At any Olympic games, athletics and swimming are always the events with the most set of medals. However, these compulsory sporting events are not the Vietnamese athletes’ strength.

In the swimming event, only Nguyen Huu Viet has enough ability to compete for a gold in men's 100m breaststroke. This year, it is possible for him to grab two golds because his recent performance in 200m breaststroke is very impressive.

If all of the four good swimmers: Viet, Long, Hai and Nguyen maintain their performances forms as they did at the past AIG 3, it is possible that for the first time in the history, Vietnam will win three golds in the swimming event at a SEA Games.

Vietnam also has opportunities to win gold medals in springboard.

In the track and field event, there remain only three athletes who are able to snatch golds. They are female runner Vu Thi Huong (100m and 200m), female runner Truong Thanh Hang (800m and 1.500m) and Vu Van Huyen (decathlon).

Meanwhile, many athletes who once won golds or were the favourites such as Bui Thi Nhung and Nguyen Duy Bang (high jump), male runner Nguyen Dinh Cuong (800m and 1.500m) and Le Thi Phuong (pole-vault) were defeated by the athletes from Thailand and Malaysia in recent championships such as AIG 3 and the 2009 Asian Championship.

As a result, of 86 sets of medals in the athletics and swimming events, Vietnam can only grab 10% of the number of medals.

However, the Vietnamese athletes are able to take the lead in a lot of events at the 25th SEA Games, of which Vietnam’s strength is still the martial arts.

There are 21 sets of medals in wrestling and Vietnam hopes to win two thirds of the number of gold medals. In wushu, there are also 21 sets of medals. Vice Chairman of the Vietnam National Olympic Committee confirmed that Vietnam is certain to take the first place in this event. 19 sets of medals in pencak silat, For 19 sets of medals in karatedo and 18 sets of medals in judo, Vietnam has a lot of opportunities to win. Taekwondo used to be Vietnam’s quite strong sporting event, but in the past games, Vietnam only brought home 3 golds. There are 21 sets of medals in this event at the 25th SEA Games.

In shooting – the third most sets of medals at the games (34 sets) – it is expected that Vietnamese shooters will win much more than 8 golds Vietnam grabbed two years ago.

In the last November, the Vietnam national shooting team snatched 28 golds, topping the Southeast Asia Shooting Championship.

Other events Vietnam will be able to win many medals are the diving with 16 sets of medals, the shuttle co-ck with seven sets of medals and the weightlifting with 15 sets of medals.Latin American Dating