Before leaving for the 19th Asian Games, Vietnamese sports identified shooting as one of the sports with high achievements.
Shooter Ngo Huu Vuong receives medal - Photo: H.D.
And the most anticipated name is female shooter Trinh Thu Vinh. A month before the Asian Games, Thu Vinh unexpectedly entered the top 5 in the 10m air pistol category at the 2023 World Shooting Championship, thereby winning a ticket to the 2024 Paris Olympics.
The Old Generation Speaks Out
Entering the world top 5, Thu Vinh is expected to win a medal at the 19th Asian Games. In fact, this is still a difficult task because there are two Chinese shooters in the top 3 of the above tournament. But with the tradition of creating surprises and making unimaginable miracles, Thu Vinh is still the name that carries the "gold medal target" for the Vietnamese team. It is even more worth waiting for when she is only 23 years old, a new generation talent of the shooting team.
But it turns out, right before the new generation of talent entered the field, a name from the old generation had time to speak up. That is Ngo Huu Vuong - who for many years has been mistakenly recorded by the media as... Ngo Huu Vuong. Born in 1989, Huu Vuong began to emerge from the 2009 SEA Games.
The first time he participated in the SEA Games, Huu Vuong was mentioned a lot mainly because he is the younger brother of the famous female shooter Ngo Thi Anh Tho. But then the media was stunned by the impressive achievements of this baby-faced boy. Right at the first SEA Games of his career, Huu Vuong won 4 gold medals, including 2 individual gold medals. He is truly a king of mobile target shooting events.
Huu Vuong did not have the opportunity to repeat this feat in the following SEA Games because the mobile target shooting event was often omitted from the SEA Games. However, the Hanoian boy always maintained a stable performance whenever he appeared in international tournaments. And 5 years ago at the 18th Asiad in Indonesia, Huu Vuong made a special mark with a bronze medal in the 10m mobile target shooting event.
Despite his consistent and persistent performance, the name Ngo Huu Vuong has not attracted much attention for more than ten years. Simply because of the huge shadow of famous seniors such as Hoang Xuan Vinh, Tran Quoc Cuong, Ha Minh Thanh... In that golden generation of the shooting team, Ngo Huu Vuong was considered the youngest brother. His quiet and shy attitude made Vuong even less prominent.
Stretch
And by the 19th Asian Games, that youngest brother has now grown to become a big brother in the team. His bravery was clearly shown through the fact that Huu Vuong did not play very well in the first three series with scores of 98, 91, 96 respectively. Meanwhile, other strong opponents all averaged 96 - 97 points, and Huu Vuong's teammate Tuan Anh also shot better than him.
But as the competition entered its final three rounds, Huu Vuong still held his gun firmly, while his opponents began to lose their results. Shooting has always been praised as a sport of steely spirit, and Huu Vuong's performance symbolized that.
In the end, he surpassed two athletes who had been above him at the 18th Asian Games (Jeong Youjin of South Korea and Pak Myongwon of North Korea) to win the silver medal. With a score of 571, Vuong was only behind the champion Putra Muhammad of Indonesia.
Olympic champion Hoang Xuan Vinh (right cover) as head coach of the Vietnamese shooting team at the 19th Asiad - Photo: HUY DANG
The mark of the seniors
Praising Huu Vuong, we also cannot help but mention the mark of his seniors Hoang Xuan Vinh and Tran Quoc Cuong - now the shooting team coaches.
Especially as head coach, former shooter Hoang Xuan Vinh has a great influence on the athletes who were once his juniors and now become his students. Chinh Huu Vuong also acknowledged the influence of coach Hoang Xuan Vinh.
"Although we are not in the same profession, he always gives me useful advice, helping me feel more secure at important moments," said Vuong.
Right before Huu Vuong entered the shooting range, coach Tran Quoc Cuong in the stands also firmly affirmed that his 34-year-old junior would make history at this year's Asiad. And indeed, Huu Vuong successfully changed the color of his medal.
There was an interesting detail in the competition journey of the Vietnamese shooting team over the past two days, that is, the foreign media was surprised to see Hoang Xuan Vinh and Tran Quoc Cuong and thought that both of them were still going to the Asiad as coaches. A Korean reporter asked me, and after knowing that Hoang Xuan Vinh had retired to become a coach, he breathed a sigh of relief.
But no matter what position he holds, Hoang Xuan Vinh still makes his mark on the achievements of the Vietnamese shooting team. It is the achievement of a generation of talented shooters, and when the new generation has begun to appear, the "youngest brothers" of the old generation are still diligently shining.
Taekwondo won bronze medal
On September 25, four taekwondo athletes including Bac Thi Khiem, Pham Ngoc Cham, Ly Hong Phuc, and Pham Minh Bao Kha won bronze medals in the mixed team competition (2 men, 2 women). This is the first time this event has been included in the Asian Games and has never appeared in the Olympics.
Sharing after this achievement, Coach Le Huynh Chau said that because this is a new event, the coaching staff has considered and calculated to choose suitable athletes. Along with that, among the seven participating teams, Vietnam, Hong Kong and the Philippines are on par with each other.
Mr. Chau shared: "Luckily, in the quarterfinals, we met the Philippines, an equal opponent. Therefore, we were very happy to defeat them to advance to the semi-finals to win the bronze medal. Before leaving for Asiad, we did not set any targets because this event was new. We only recruited athletes with the best physical condition to participate in the tournament. I did not expect that we would bring home the bronze medal this time."
Meanwhile, young female athlete Pham Ngoc Cham said: "The most emotional match was when we defeated the Philippines, because at that time we knew for sure that we had won a medal. My goal of participating in the Asian Games has now been achieved. In the future, I hope I will win a ticket to the Olympics." According to Cham, she often competes in the 57kg weight class.
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