Vietnamese sports on the eve of the Olympic Games.

Báo Dân trí•22/07/2024

In just a few days, on the evening of July 26th, the opening ceremony of the Summer Olympics - Paris 2024 - the biggest international sporting event of the year - will take place in the French capital, Paris. The Vietnamese sports delegation, consisting of 39 members, including 16 athletes competing in 11 sports, departed on July 17th and will enter the Games with the goal of winning medals.

From the arduous journey at the Olympic Games

The unified Vietnamese sports delegation first participated in the 1980 Moscow Olympics, an event where athletes did not have to go through qualifying rounds (they were invited by the organizing committee). Against the backdrop of a struggling domestic economy , our athletes did not achieve any significant results on their first international trip. Similarly, in Los Angeles in 1984, a year when socialist countries did not participate due to the Cold War, the Vietnamese sports delegation did not participate. Since the 1988 Olympics, Vietnamese sports have consistently participated in the world's largest sporting event. However, because the skill level of Vietnam's top athletes in Olympic sports is still far behind even continental-level standards, the main objective at the Olympics remains the familiar phrase: "gain experience and learn." It wasn't until 2000 in Sydney, Australia, that we won our first medal in Taekwondo, thanks to female martial artist Tran Hieu Ngan. That was also the first year this martial art, originating from South Korea, was included in the Olympic Games. Although relatively new to the Olympic arena, we had invested in Taekwondo about 10 years prior, making Vietnam the only Southeast Asian country to win a Taekwondo medal that year.

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Director of the Department of Physical Education and Sports, Dang Ha Viet, will lead the Vietnamese sports delegation to the 2024 Paris Olympics (Photo: Quy Luong).

After failing to win any medals in Athens (Greece) in 2004, the Vietnamese sports delegation won a medal in Beijing in 2008, still a silver medal, thanks to weightlifter Hoang Anh Tuan. It can be said that we have established another strength capable of competing at the highest level in the men's lightweight weight category in weightlifting. However, while weightlifting progressed, Taekwondo declined somewhat, with no athletes qualifying for Athens 2004, and then failing again in Beijing 2008 despite having three representatives (their best performance being reaching the quarterfinals). In London 2012, the Vietnamese sports delegation was almost empty-handed, except for a "late bronze medal" nine years later won by Tran Le Quoc Toan when an athlete in the group above him tested positive for doping. The eight-year cycle repeated itself at Rio 2016 with a breakthrough performance from shooter Hoang Xuan Vinh, who won a historic gold medal in the 10m air pistol event, followed by a silver medal in the 50m event. Thus, it took exactly nine Olympic Games and 36 years of waiting for shooting (a strong sport that brought home the first Asian Games bronze medal in 1982) to finally reap the rewards at the Olympics for Vietnamese sports. But at Tokyo 2020, the nightmare of a medal-less season returned when the Vietnamese sports delegation, with 18 elite athletes competing in 11 sports, failed to win any medals. Olympic hero Hoang Xuan Vinh only finished 22nd. The number one hope in Taekwondo, Kim Tuyen, suffered a defeat, as expected, with Panipak (Thailand) subsequently winning the gold medal. Another source of hope was Thach Kim Tuan (weightlifting, competing in the 56kg category where Hoang Anh Tuan and Tran Le Quoc Toan had previously won silver and bronze medals), who underperformed and even failed to complete the clean and jerk... Only by participating and witnessing it firsthand can we understand the tremendous pressure that athletes from developing sports nations like Vietnam face at the Olympics. Therefore, the fact that after 10 Olympic appearances, Vietnamese sports have only won 4 medals (1 gold, 2 silver, and 1 bronze) in 3 sports – shooting, Taekwondo, and weightlifting – is a disappointing but understandable statistic, given that throughout this long journey, we have focused more on the SEA Games, and even in a closer competition like the Asian Games, our achievements are still far behind those of countries with comparable sports development in Southeast Asia.

Anxiety surrounding the Paris 2024 Olympics

Following the 19th Asian Games, Vietnamese sports in general, and high-performance sports in particular, faced much criticism for consistently ranking first at the 31st and 32nd SEA Games, but only sixth in ASEAN in terms of performance at the Asian Games. Numerous analyses and dissections have pointed out countless shortcomings that the sports sector needs to address, alongside the need for policies and support from the Government and other ministries and agencies to create synergy in the new development process.

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Weightlifter Trinh Van Vinh (Photo: Organizing Committee).

Recently, the Politburo issued Conclusion 70 on "Developing Physical Education and Sports in the New Period." The Government is also preparing to issue the "Strategy for the Development of Physical Education and Sports to 2030, with a Vision to 2045." All of these are considered important foundations guiding the development of national sports in the coming years. Everything takes time, so it's not surprising that even during this year's Paris Olympic qualifiers, Vietnamese sports were at one point concerned about not meeting the target (12 to 15 athletes) to participate. Almost all available resources were focused by the Department of Physical Education and Sports on key athletes participating in qualifying tournaments and rounds. Ultimately, Vietnamese sports not only met but exceeded the target, with 16 athletes securing tickets to France. It's regrettable that no Taekwondo athletes qualified this time. No wonder people say that in this sport, our progress is backward; we started ahead but ended up behind. We've achieved the "numbers," but what about the "quality"? The fact that we continue to rank only 6th in Southeast Asia in terms of the number of athletes participating in the Olympics (after Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, and the Philippines) is no longer that important. What the public is more concerned about now is whether the Vietnamese sports delegation can win at least one medal, instead of going home empty-handed like at Tokyo 2020. According to professional analysis, names like Nguyen Huy Hoang, Vo Thi My Tien (swimming), Nguyen Thi Huong (canoeing), Pham Thi Hue (rowing), and Tran Thi Nhi Yen (athletics) can only hope to surpass their own previous performances, given the clear inferiority in skill compared to the Olympic standard. Nguyen Thuy Linh and Le Duc Phat (badminton) can hope to get past the group stage. Boxers Vo Thi Kim Anh and Ha Thi Linh, and Hoang Thi Tinh (judo) can only hope for a victory. Nguyen Thi That (cycling) – a cyclist who improved thanks to the opportunity to compete for a Belgian team – only hopes to achieve the best possible result, making it difficult to compete for a medal. The remaining hopes for medals are narrowed down to Trinh Van Vinh (weightlifting), Trinh Thu Vinh, Le Thi Mong Tuyen (shooting), and Do Thi Anh Nguyet, Le Quoc Phong (archery). A deeper analysis reveals that the main hope rests on the two athletes named Vinh in weightlifting and shooting. With current world rankings of 8th-9th in the 61kg category, Van Vinh needs a breakthrough performance to have any hope of a bronze medal. Thu Vinh is also expected to spring a surprise, given the nature of shooting (the line between failure and success is very thin) and the fact that she is being coached by expert Park Chung-gun, who previously coached Xuan Vinh to win gold eight years ago. Looking at countries in the region like Thailand, Indonesia, and the Philippines, they all have hopes of winning gold at this year's Olympics, thanks to their unique strengths that have been built and consolidated over a long period. In fact, Vietnamese sports also once had strengths and hopes, but the strong investment to maintain and develop their position has not been commensurate. It is clear that, from the apprehension leading up to the 2024 Paris Olympics, Vietnamese sports need a strong change in investment and development of high-performance sports. In other words, whether or not we win medals at Paris 2024 will not be as important as what we do to create sustainable development in some key sports, aiming for Asian and Olympic arenas in the future. Source: https://dantri.com.vn/tam-diem/the-thao-viet-nam-truoc-dau-truong-olympic-20240721124024591.htm