Nguyen Huy Hoang's Day

The whole day was quite quiet when most of the final events were unsuccessful, the hope of the Vietnamese sports delegation was placed on the performance of swimmer Nguyen Huy Hoang in the men's 400m freestyle final. The distance that helped Huy Hoang succeed many times in the Southeast Asian arena, but really made it difficult for him when stepping into the big continental arena, facing strong opponents.

Starting in lane 6, Huy Hoang suddenly slowed down and gradually dropped to 8th place after the first 50 meters of water. The 32nd SEA Games champion showed no signs of being able to move up as after the first 300 meters, he was still in last place.

Nguyen Huy Hoang received a bronze medal in the 400m swimming event. (Photo: BUI LUONG)

Just like when he caused a surprise in the opposite direction in the 1,500m freestyle final a few days ago, the swimmer from Quang Binh only now accelerated and jumped to third place after 350m. Huy Hoang maintained this position until the finish line with a time of 3 minutes 49 seconds 16, just behind Kim Woo-min (Korea, 3 minutes 44 seconds 36) and Pan Zhan-le (China, 3 minutes 48 seconds 81).

Without another Olympic qualification like the two times he won in the 1,500m freestyle (standard B) and 800m freestyle (standard A), the bronze medal in the 400m freestyle closed another successful ASIAD in Nguyen Huy Hoang's career, after 1 silver and 1 bronze medal at the 18th ASIAD 5 years ago in Indonesia.

The first day of athletics and the results of the three young athletes Minh Hanh, Anh Thuc and Nhi Yen were truly valuable at the end of the sixth day of competition. Hoang Thi Minh Hanh finished second in a qualifying round and together with Hoang Thi Anh Thuc, they advanced to the final of the 400m distance as the third-place finishers with the second best results.

For the first time on the continental track, Tran Thi Nhi Yen showed that she is worthy of being the hope of Vietnamese athletics, in the most attractive event of the queen's sport. Nhi Yen finished third in the first qualifying round of the 100m and held her breath until the end of the qualifying rounds to know that she would compete in the final of this distance. The girl from Long An province made it to the final thanks to her good performance among the three third-place finishers in the three rounds, accidentally eliminating the Filipino star Christina Marie Knotte, once a formidable opponent of her senior Le Tu Chinh in the SEA Games arena.

With no more medals for shooting, gymnastics and even e-sports on a day when many sports closed their competition programs at ASIAD 19 in silence, Vietnamese sports clearly felt the pressure from the continental arena, from the performance targets and could only encourage each other to make more efforts in the following days.