Important tasks of Vietnamese sports in the second half of 2025

The Asian Youth Games and the 33rd SEA Games are two important arenas for Vietnamese sports in the second half of 2025.

The mission of the sports industry

Regarding the tasks of Vietnamese sports in the last 6 months of 2025, on the sidelines of the 5th Conference of the Executive Committee of the Vietnam Olympic Committee, term VI (2021-2026), Minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism Nguyen Van Hung said that in order to focus on developing Vietnamese sports in accordance with the spirit of Conclusion 70 of the Politburo and the Strategy of the Prime Minister just issued, the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and the Vietnam Olympic Committee must focus on accompanying and comprehensively implementing these contents. However, due to the limited time, the sports industry focuses on doing well 2 major tasks.

"First, urgently prepare forces, strengthen training, strengthen coaching, select and establish a Vietnamese Sports Delegation to participate in the Asian Youth Games. Vietnam's presence in this arena is very important, proving the strength of the country's sports, affirming the talent of the next generation. Thereby, young athletes have the opportunity to learn, gain experience, and continue to develop in the future.

The second task is at the 33rd SEA Games hosted by Thailand later this year, we must show the highest determination to maintain the leading position. Not only focusing on traditional sports of the host country, Vietnamese sports must strive to compete in sports in the ASIAD and Olympic programs," the Minister emphasized.

In addition, the sports industry also needs to observe and discover more talents. State-run sports training centers must closely coordinate with federations and associations to enhance training and discover talents from the mass movement to bring them into professional training. In addition, the entire industry must focus its efforts, do a better job of managing athletes, and create conditions for them to compete.

Mr. Nguyen Danh Hoang Viet - Vietnam Sports Department said that in order to have the best preparation for the tasks in the second half of 2025 and especially the 33rd SEA Games, the Department has been strengthening the direction of relevant units to review the athlete force as well as the best conditions to ensure the participation of the Vietnamese Sports Delegation to achieve good results.

Vietnam archery team players attend the 2025 national championship in Vinh Long .

Maximum focus on SEA Games 33

According to the official announcement of the host Thailand, the 33rd SEA Games will have 50 sports with a total of 547 sets of medals. It is expected that the Vietnamese sports delegation will attend the SEA Games with 1,000 members, including nearly 50 doctors, medical staff, and team leaders. This number is approximately as high as the 32nd SEA Games in Cambodia (2023) with 1,003 members.

Initially, Vietnamese sports set a target of winning 75 to 85 Gold Medals. In particular, the key sports (in the ASIAD and Olympic programs) and Vietnam's strengths in the Gold Medal competition group include athletics, swimming, shooting, wrestling, taekwondo, karate, fencing, weightlifting, canoeing and traditional boating, gymnastics, football, indoor volleyball, aerobics, handball, golf, 3x3 basketball, sepak takraw, archery, boxing, judo, jujitsu, chess, petanque, wushu, muay, rowing, cycling, triathlon, kickboxing, pencak silat, table tennis.

In addition, the sports with the opportunity to compete for medals are tennis, 5x5 basketball, beach volleyball, badminton, bowling... and the group of socialized sports including billiards, skating, esport, MMA... Currently, Vietnamese sports have completed the registration of the number of sports and the number of events but have not announced it yet. At this time, the preparation plan and performance targets have been reported by the departments to the leaders of the Department of Physical Education and Sports.

To achieve the goals of winning medals in general and gold medals in particular, a series of national tournaments in many key sports have been held over the past month. Most recently, from July 20 to 30, the top 200 archers nationwide will compete in the 2025 National Archery Tournament at the stadium in Vinh Long province, from July 20 to 30.

“This is the most professional tournament in Vietnamese archery. National team archers will return to their home team to compete and above all, after the professional training, they will compete with more feeling and show their performance. During the tournament, we will grasp the strength of each athlete so that the team's coaching staff can have suitable personnel to participate in the 33rd SEA Games - 2025", said Mr. Phan Trong Quan, head of the archery department (Vietnam Sports Administration).

Another sport that is also very confident of winning the gold medal after a long preparation process is Sepak Takraw. Since the beginning of 2025, 16 members have gathered at the National High-Level Athlete Training Center. This lineup includes core faces who have affirmed their talents such as: Tran Thi Ngoc Yen, Nguyen Thi My, Nguyen Thi Ngoc Huyen, Nguyen Thi Yen, along with a number of promising U19 young talents, to prepare for future succession.

At the end of March, the Vietnamese women's sepak takraw team made history when they defeated Thailand in the final match of the 4v4 women's event of the 2025 World Cup in India to win the championship. This is the first time Vietnam has achieved this achievement in an official tournament of the International Sepak Takraw Federation (ISTAF). This result also shows that the skill gap between Vietnam and the sepak takraw powerhouse Thailand is narrowing. This is an extremely positive signal, creating great motivation for the team in the journey to prepare for the 33rd SEA Games, in Thailand at the end of the year.

Foreign experts support the goal of "hunting" for Gold medals

17 national sports teams in the important group including athletics, swimming, shooting, archery, taekwondo, weightlifting, boxing, fencing, gymnastics, cycling, judo, wrestling, badminton, rowing, karate, wushu and sepak takraw are reviewing their forces to achieve the best expertise to attend the 33rd SEA Games. It is known that foreign experts are supporting domestic coaches in professional training of players in many of the above teams.

For example, expert Gustavo Piza is working with the Vietnam Swimming Team. Meanwhile, the Vietnam Shooting Team uses expert Altantsetseg Byambajavyn (Mongolia) to train female pistol shooters.

In addition to the above teams, many other teams have experts including taekwondo (experts from Iran, Korea), archery (experts from Korea), gymnastics (experts from Japan), badminton (experts from Indonesia), wushu (experts from China)...

Source: https://cand.com.vn/the-thao/nhiem-vu-quan-trong-cua-the-thao-viet-nam-trong-nua-cuoi-nam-2025-i775416/