Vietnamese athletes won 4 gold medals at the 33rd SEA Games on December 10th.

The Vietnamese sports delegation won 4 Gold Medals, 4 Silver Medals, and 14 Bronze Medals on the first day of official competition at the 33rd SEA Games.

December 10th was the first official day of competition at the 33rd SEA Games, and many medals were awarded.

Vietnam wins gold medal in the Team Creative Poomsae event (Photo: TN).

For the Vietnamese sports delegation, we won 4 gold medals on this day. The gold medal winners for Vietnam were: Nguyen Thi Huong and Diep Thi Huong (women's 500m canoeing doubles), Team Creative Taekwondo, Tran Hung Nguyen (men's 200m individual medley, swimming) and Nguyen Van Dung (petanque).

In addition, the Vietnamese team won four more silver medals from Nguyen Thi Kim Ha and Nguyen Trong Phuc (taekwondo standard doubles); Phung Mui Nhinh (jujitsu 52kg); Vo Thi My Tien (200m butterfly); and Vo Duy Thanh and Do Thi Thanh Thao (500m doubles canoeing).

The remaining 14 bronze medals are spread across many sports: jujitsu (5), canoeing (1), taekwondo (1), maruk blitz chess (1), swimming (3) and petanque (3).

Notably, in taekwondo, two Vietnamese athletes, Nguyen Thi Kim Ha and Nguyen Trong Phuc, performed very well but received low scores and only won silver medals.

Immediately after the match ended, taekwondo team leader Nguyen Thu Trang and coach Nguyen Minh Tu officially filed a complaint with the Organizing Committee, disagreeing with the judges' scoring method for overlooking too many fouls committed by Singapore – the gold medal-winning team.

The Vietnamese side asserted that the Singaporean pair committed three fouls in the final match (the female athlete committed two fouls, the male athlete committed one loss of balance), but the referees overlooked them all.

As a result, the judges awarded Singapore 8.84 - 8.50 points, while the pair Nguyen Thi Kim Ha and Nguyen Trong Phuc performed well but only achieved 8.50 and 8.38 points in the mixed doubles kata final.

Coach Nguyen Minh Tu asserted: "It doesn't matter which team wins, but the referee's scoring is unacceptable. They ignored three clear technical fouls committed by two Singaporean athletes. The Philippines are also upset and have filed a complaint with the Organizing Committee because they are dissatisfied with the biased scoring in favor of Singapore in the semi-final match."

Despite receiving complaints, the referees decided not to change the results, and the two Vietnamese athletes only won silver medals.

After receiving the results, Ms. Nguyen Thu Trang said: “My feelings right now are a little sad and regretful, because although the opposing team made many mistakes, the result remains unchanged. I hope that in the following matches, the organizers will score more closely and fairly towards the Vietnamese team in particular and all other teams in general.”

Personally, I'm a little worried about the quality of the refereeing because there were some very obvious fouls that the referees ignored. Vietnam's score was correct, but Singapore's score was too high. However, I still have faith in the whole team and the athletes will give their best in the remaining events, performing to the best of their ability to achieve the greatest success."

After the first day of competition, the Vietnamese sports delegation is temporarily ranked 4th in the overall standings. Ahead of them are Thailand (17 gold medals, 12 silver medals, and 9 bronze medals), Indonesia (4 gold medals, 7 silver medals, and 6 bronze medals), and Singapore (4 gold medals, 5 silver medals, and 2 bronze medals).

Medal standings as of December 10th.

Source: https://baoxaydung.vn/the-thao-viet-nam-gianh-4-huy-chuong-vang-tai-sea-games-33-trong-ngay-10-12-192251210220755309.htm