To keep Vietnamese athletics from 'going backwards'

The Vietnamese athletics team needs a strong breakthrough, after 2023 despite busy competition but no success.

Vietnamese athletes will have a busy year in 2023 when they participate in many major competitions such as the SEA Games and ASIAD, before returning to compete in the national championship, which ended last November. Despite high expectations, the Vietnamese athletics team did not achieve as much success as expected. At the 32nd SEA Games, the team won 12 gold medals, surpassed by Thailand after 3 consecutive dominations of the Southeast Asian track. At the 19th ASIAD, Vietnamese athletics did not achieve the goal of winning medals. Nguyen Thi Oanh failed in both distances. In the women's 1,500m race, the runner from Bac Giang only ranked 7th with a time nearly 8 seconds lower than at the 18th ASIAD.

Vietnamese athletics needs a boost

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In the women's 3,000m steeplechase, the 32nd SEA Games champion achieved her best performance of the year, but was still far behind the bronze medal she won at the 18th ASIAD. That is, not to mention competing, Nguyen Thi Oanh could not surpass herself. The 18th ASIAD champion Bui Thi Thu Thao also failed to defend her throne when she only finished 8th overall at the 19th ASIAD. Meanwhile, the 4x400m relay team could not repeat the resounding success at the Asian tournament, as they only finished 4th at the 19th ASIAD. The athletes' unsuccessful performance in many arenas has caused concern for Vietnamese athletics. A series of pillars such as Nguyen Thi Huyen (400m, 400m hurdles), Bui Thi Thu Thao (long jump), Nguyen Van Lai (5,000m, 10,000m) are no longer wearing the national team jersey, in the context that the new generation of athletes has only a few notable faces such as Tran Thi Nhi Yen (short distance) and Le Thi Tuyet (long distance), it is difficult to repeat previous achievements, not to mention reaching further in major arenas, first of all the 2024 Paris Olympics. Currently, Vietnamese athletics does not have any face that is sure to attend the Olympics next year. Most likely, we have to rely on special tickets, like the case of Quach Thi Lan at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics 2 years ago (Quach Thi Lan later reached the semi-finals). However, according to experts, the new Olympic standards for athletics are always much higher than tournaments in the region and continent. Therefore, Vietnamese athletics needs to look at reality to set appropriate goals for the more distant future. "Hot issues such as training and investment for national and youth athletes, hiring foreign experts, focusing on investment and training for key athletes will be discussed to find the best solution in the current context of Vietnamese athletics", Mr. Nguyen Manh Hung, General Secretary of the Vietnam Athletics Federation shared. Vietnamese athletics needs to find a new direction, in the immediate future in the work of discovering, selecting, training athletes, selecting talents for key investment, at the same time calculating the training stage and choosing the right peak performance for athletes, avoiding the case of spreading out and overloading competitions leading to unsatisfactory results.

On December 5, the Vietnam Athletics Federation and Hai Long International Co., Ltd., representative of the Li-Ning sportswear brand, signed an extension of the sponsorship cooperation. Accordingly, Li-Ning continues to be the official apparel sponsor accompanying Vietnamese athletics for 3 years (2023-2025). The Li-Ning brand will provide professional training and competition apparel and equipment for coaches, athletes and members of the federation. For nearly 20 years in the Vietnamese market, Li-Ning has accompanied Vietnamese sports with many teams in large and small tournaments, including the Vietnamese team in the period of 2006 - 2008, along with a number of clubs such as The Cong Viettel, Phu Dong, accompanying the Vietnam Badminton Federation in many national tournaments...

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