Vietnam concludes SEA Games campaign with 98 gold medals

The Vietnam sports delegation wrapped up their 30th SEA Games campaign in style, settling for second place in the overall medal tally with 98 golds, 85 silvers and 105 bronzes, a surplus of 33 golds over the target (65) set ahead of their departure.

Wednesday, December 11, 2019 04:36

Swimmer Nguyen Thi Anh Vien is the most outstanding Vietnamese athlete at the 30th SEA Games with a collection of six gold and two silver medals.

Vietnam dominated the athletics competition in the Philippines with a collection of 16 gold medals, four clear of powerhouse Thailand and surpassing their SEA Games target by five golds. Particularly, six of Vietnam’s athletics titles were claimed on the penultimate day of the Games (December 10), including their first-ever 4x400m relay victory by Tran Nhat Hoang.

The wrestling team also produced an impressive sprint, winning all the seven title deciders on Tuesday to return home with 12 gold medals (out of the total 14 categories at the 2019 SEA Games).

Swimming was Vietnam’s third “goldmine”, contributing 11 golds to the country’s medal count. Especially, with a sparkling collection of six individual golds and two silvers, “little mermaid” Nguyen Thi Anh Vien became the most outstanding athlete in this year’s SEA Games. According to the Vietnam Olympic Committee, Anh Vien will be honoured by the organising committee at the closing ceremony of the 2019 Games scheduled in New Clark City, the Philippines, today (December 11).

After 60 years of waiting, Vietnam have eventually realised the dream of clinching the first-ever SEA Games men’s football title following their fantastic 3-0 victory against Indonesia in the final match, last night. Together with the supreme triumph of the women’s team earlier, this is the first time that Vietnam has dominated the football competition at the SEA Games arena.

A total of four new SEA Games records were established by Vietnamese athletes in the Philippines, including two by swimmer Nguyen Huy Hoang (men’s 1,500m freestyle, men’s 400m freestyle), one by swimmer Tran Hung Nguyen (men's 400m individual medley) and one by Nguyen Thi Oanh (athletics, women’s 3,000m steepleschase).

Together with the three aforementioned “goldmines”, the Vietnam sports delegation also harvested success in many other Olympic and non-Olympic events, including archery (3), arnis (4), billiards sports (1), boxing (1), canoeing (2), cycling (2), dancesport (2), fencing (4), gymnastics-aerobic (3), gymnastics-artistic (3), beach handball (1), judo (2), karate (2), kickboxing (4), kurash (7), muay (1), pencak silat (1), table tennis (1), taekwondo (5), tennis (1), weightlifting (4) and wushu (3).