Huy Hoang won the Asian swimming gold medal for the first time in history.

On the evening of September 29, swimmer Nguyen Huy Hoang excellently brought home a gold medal in the 1,500m final of the 2025 Asian Swimming Championship held in India.

Huy Hoang won the gold medal at the Asian Swimming Championship for the first time - Photo: QUY LUONG

In the final, Huy Hoang faced opponents such as Ilya Sibirtsev (Uzbekistan), Kushagra Rawat (India), Hinata Ando (Japan)... The Vietnamese swimmer started in lane number 4.

After the first 50m, Huy Hoang quickly took second place with a gap of 0.11 seconds over Hinata Ando. When reaching the 100m mark, he took the lead but quickly returned to second place when giving way to Sibirtsev.

However, Huy Hoang always kept a close chase, never letting the gap with his opponent be more than 1 second. At the 1,200m mark, he successfully regained the lead and maintained it until the end of the race.

Huy Hoang's achievement was 15 minutes 15.01 seconds, 8.34 seconds more than the second place winner, Sibirtsev (15 minutes 23.35 seconds). The third place winner was Indian swimmer Kushagra Rawat (15 minutes 30.88 seconds).

This is the first time in his career that Nguyen Huy Hoang has won a gold medal at the Asian Swimming Championship. At the continental level, his previous best achievement was a silver medal at the Asiad, also in the men's 1,500m event.

Part of the reason for Huy Hoang’s success this time is that many excellent swimmers from China, Japan, and Korea did not participate. However, the Vietnamese swimmers themselves have achieved high performance and maintained a determined competitive spirit.

The achievement in this tournament is also Huy Hoang's best achievement in more than 2 years. At the 19th Asian Games held in China at the end of September 2023, he finished after 15 minutes 04.06 seconds. Since then, he has swum more than 15 minutes 10 seconds.

Some specific tournaments mentioned are at the 2024 Paris Olympics, Huy Hoang achieved a time of 15 minutes 19.39 seconds. At the World Swimming Championships last August, his time was 15 minutes 18.63 seconds. This time, he also swam over 15 minutes 10 seconds but had a significant improvement compared to the Olympics or World Championships, thereby winning a gold medal.

DUC KHUE

Source: https://tuoitre.vn/huy-hoang-lan-dau-trong-lich-su-gianh-huy-chuong-vang-boi-chau-a-20250930065617565.htm