Athletics team right on track for medals
11:30’ 10/11/2006 (GMT+7)
VietNamNet Bridge – Shoeless runner Nguyen Chi Dong set a bench-mark for his ASIAD teammates by finishing second at the first marathon of the Greatest Race on Earth in Nairobi last week.
The 21-year-old national record holder finished the 42.195km stage in two hours, 22 minutes, 42 seconds. After Kenya, Dong returned to train again in Kunming, China, where he and other teammates have sweat it out on the track in preparation for the Asian Games next month, where the team hopes to take a medal.
After polishing off a successful Southeast Asian (SEA) Games in the Philippines last year with eight gold medals, all members of the athletics team have gathered in a one-year training session in preparation for the Asian Games (ASIAD) in Doha.
Among the eight SEA Games gold medallists on the team are Bui Thi Nhung, who set a record in the women’s high jump, and Truong Thanh Hang, who’s a medal hopeful in the 1,500m.
Nhung, who won the first-ever gold medal for Vietnam at the Asian Track and Field Championship in the Philippines three years ago, jumped a height of 1.88m before breaking the Southeast Asia record of 1.94m in the Thai Open Track and Field at Thammasat Stadium in Bangkok in 2004.
ASIAD is a higher level of competition than the SEA Games, since athletes will face giants from China, Japan, South Korea and central Asian countries.
But sport committee officials are optimistic since athletes have undergone additional training.
According to head of athletics section of the Viet Nam Sports and Physical Culture Committee, Duong Duc Thuy, Nhung could bring home the gold if she passes the bar at a height of at least 1.9m, while her teammate Nguyen Duy Bang, who holds the Southeast Asia high jump record with a 2.25m leap at the All Asian Stars Athletics Championship in Singapore two years ago, can clear 2.2m on the men’s side.
On track, runner Trung Thanh Hang from HCM City also pocketed a gold medal in the women’s 1,500m of the Thai Open Track and Field after finishing in four minutes and 28.12 seconds.
Hang clocked a SEA Games record time of 4:18.50, but she will have to improve her time if she doesn’t want to leave ASIAD empty-handed.
According to vice chairman of the National Olympic Committee, Nguyen Hong Minh, the athletics team’s target at ASIAD will be a bronze medal.
To reach that target, the team imported coaches from Russia, France and Bulgaria to help athletes increase their chances of success.
In the last ASIAD in Busan, South Korea, four years ago the team placed 15th with four gold, seven silver and seven bronze medals.
(Source: Viet Nam News)