SEA Games gold medal hunter
The year 2001 marked an important milestone in Vinh’s professional career when he won his first ever SEA Games gold medal in the men’s team air pistol. Vinh and his teammates went on to successfully defend the title at the 22nd SEA Games in Vietnam two years later.
At the 2007 SEA Games in Thailand, Vinh proved himself as a talented shooter by taking home three precious gold medals (one individual and two team medals) in the 10m air pistol and 25m revolver pistol events.
At the 25th SEA Games in 2009, Vinh surged past his Singaporean rival in the finals to be crowned champion in the men's 10m air pistol with 675.1 points. Two years later, he continued to play his role as team anchor, contributing two of the seven gold medals won by Vietnamese shooters at the 26th SEA Games in Indonesia – one in the 10m air pistol and one in the 25m revolver pistol category.
A 'golden' hope at 27th SEA Games
Many shooting events, some of which are Vietnam's strengths, have been excluded from the competitive programme of this year's SEA Games. This is bad news for Vietnam sports on the whole and Vietnamese shooting in particular. Shooting, along with athletics and gymnastics, has always been considered one of Vietnam's 'gold mines' on the regional stage.
In its new format, the shooting event features just six disciplines: the men's slow fire pistol, air pistol and rifle prone, and women's air pistol, sport pistol and rifle prone. The excluded disciplines are rapid fire pistol, standard pistol, revolver pistol and rifle three positions.
For that reason, the General Department of Sports and Physical Training has assigned the Vietnam national shooting team the modest target of winning at least one gold medal at the upcoming Games. Veteran marksman Hoang Xuan Vinh will shoulder the major responsibility of living up to that goal, as his favourite air pistol discipline has fortunately avoided exclusion.
At the 2013 ISSF Rifle and Pistol World Cup in Changwon, Republic of Korea in April, Vinh battled to pick up the men's 10m air pistol gold medal, the first-ever World Cup gold for Vietnam, with a total score of 200.8 points. We - Vietnamese shooting lovers - do believe that his abundant experience, thorough preparation and repeated past successes will inspire Vinh to defend his men's 10m air pistol crown at the 27th SEA Games next month.
