According to Hoang Quoc Vinh, head of the Elite Sports Department, Vietnam now has three official tickets to Argentina. The ticket holders include 18-year-old Do Hong Ngoc, who won a silver medal in the world junior boxing championship; 16-year-old Nguyen Huu Kim Son, who won 14 gold medals to help Vietnam top the medal tally at the Southeast Asian Age Group Swimming Championships in Brunei, and a to-be-determined women’s weightlifter.
At the world junior weightlifting championship last year, Vietnam’s female team ranked 15th and so were awarded one slot to compete in the Youth Olympic this year. The leaders of the weightlifting section will carefully choose a player to compete in the women’s 48kg category.
The other ticket hopefuls are martial artists Ho Thi Kim Ngan, Nguyen Anh Nguyet and Nguyen Thanh Truong.
The 16-year-old Ngan of An Giang won gold medals in the ASEAN junior taekwondo championship 2017, the Republic of Korea taekwondo open, and a gold medal in the world junior event in 2016. The 1.8m tall girl is ranked sixth in the world, behind athletes from Cuba, Iran, England, Japan and France.
Karate martial artist Nguyet of Hanoi is world junior No 10 in the women’s 53 kg and Truong of HCM City is world junior No 12 in the men’s 68 kg.
“Nguyet and Truong will take part in the Asian junior taekwondo championship in Japan in May, the qualifying round for the world junior event in June in Bulgaria to qualify to Argentina,” said coach Pham Hong Ha.
Additionally, 18-year-old judoka Le Anh Tai, world junior No 7, is also expected to earn enough points to qualify for the Youth Olympic Games.
Other athletes could win bids to the Buenos Aires games in archery, fencing, athletics, wrestling and badminton.
Vietnam won a total of two golds, two silvers and two bronzes at Youth Olympic Games in 2010 and 2014.
At the Games in 2010, weightlifter Thach Kim Tuan won a gold medal in the men’s 56kg. In taekwondo, Nguyen Thanh Thao bagged a silver medal in the women’s 55kg and Nguyen Quoc Cuong took a bronze in the men’s side.
At the Games in 2014, swimmer Nguyen Thi Anh Vien brought home a gold medal in the women’s 200m medley.
The Buenos Aires 2018 event is the third edition of the Summer Youth Olympics, a major international sports event in which culture and education are also of great importance. It is the first Youth Games for either summer or winter to be held outside Eurasia.
VNA/VNP
