Vietnamese sports exert efforts to grab new opportunities

The year 2021 closes the decade-long journey of Vietnamese sports with many proud historical successes and many failures. In the new year, Vietnamese sport faces new opportunities in a new cycle with many key tasks, especially in building its image in the international arena. This is considered a big challenge, but it also opens new opportunities for sports in the country.

Photo: THANH HAI
Photo: THANH HAI

Changing the key orientation

From the time Vietnamese sports re-integrated into world sports in 1989, with the starting point being participating in the SEA Games, until 2003, when Vietnam hosted the 22nd SEA Games and won first place overall, the development orientation chosen by Vietnamese sports has been effective. Not only bringing the top position in the region, that the orientation also helps Vietnamese sports to get historic achievements at ASIAD and Olympic Games. Currently, Vietnamese sport has passed the stage of longing for the "gold medal" of the SEA Games, but with the failure of the Tokyo 2020 Olympics as well as the failure to achieve the desired results in recent ASIAD events, the sports industry must have a new, more long-term strategy if the industry does not want to lose out on achievements in major sports festivals.

Winning the gold medal at ASIAD 19 and having an Olympic medal in 2024 is the goal of Vietnamese sports, as oriented by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism for the coming time. Meanwhile, the winning of gold medals in many subjects at the 31st SEA Games held in May in Vietnam is also considered natural. With the determination to transform, the sport industry affirmed that the investment strategy and planning for high-performance sports will make a big difference compared to before, focusing on taking ASIAD as the centre to form the basis for setting gold medal goals for SEA Games and Olympic medal goals”.

Previously, Vietnamese sports chose to invest in the form of linkage, investing in training for athletes who achieved high results at the SEA Games (Southeast Asia level), filtering the elites from this force to prepare for ASIAD (Asia level), and then selecting the athletes for the Olympics (world level).

And as a new orientation, the upcoming high-performance sports will reverse its strategy, choosing to invest in key athletes to compete for Olympic medals, then choosing key subjects to attack in the ASIAD arena with the goal of winning gold medals.

Solving the key problem

In 2010, the sports industry made a breakthrough in identifying key sports and contents with first group of 10 subjects, including athletics, swimming, weightlifting, taekwondo, badminton, table tennis, and women's wrestling, women's boxing, shooting and karate. Athletes of the key subject group have partly proved the key role in the "squad" of Vietnamese sport. Especially shooting, with the historic gold medal at the Rio 2016 Olympics by shooter Hoang Xuan Vinh. Meanwhile, athletics also set historical milestones at the ASIAD playground, with Bui Thi Thu Thao and Quach Thi Lan winning the 2018 ASIAD gold.

However, after returning empty-handed from the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, the sports industry was forced to recognise the fact that many key sports are no longer suitable for the times. Weightlifting received a lot of expectations at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics but only left disappointment. Or table tennis, which is a key subject of the first group of 10 subjects, has never proved its ability at ASIAD; thus, the gold medal at the SEA Games is still the most practical goal for this sport.

Furthermore, the Vietnamese athletes' loss of physical strength and stature for the fast, strong, endurance, and difficult subjects when compared to the world is also a part of the reason it is difficult for Vietnamese athletes to contest for Olympic medals.

Deputy Director General in charge of the General Department of Physical Education and Sports Tran Duc Phan said that the stature of foreign athletes is much better than that of Vietnam. This is at the current stage. Hopefully in the distant future, the physical stature of Vietnamese athletes will change more. Winning medals in athletics or swimming is extremely difficult for Vietnam. Therefore, it is necessary to have an investment strategy and plan with specific focus on a selection of subjects and contents.

Vietnam competed in boxing, taekwondo, shooting, athletics, archery, sailing, rowing, judo, weightlifting, badminton, and gymnastics at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics. These are the subjects where Asian athletes are very strong, but the journey to win an ASIAD "gold medal" is not simple. In order to change the investment orientation for important goals, it is necessary to redefine the key groups of subjects, especially first group of 10 subjects, even though it is not an easy problem to solve. This is based on the achievements and development conditions of these subjects in the previous periods and the development forecasts for the international arena in the future.

Thus, depending on the reality, the number of key subjects can also be withdrawn, just investing in the subjects that are truly capable of contesting an ASIAD gold medal or an Olympic medal. And only after determining the key groups of subjects and content Vietnamese sports can clearly identify key athletes who need special investment.

Worry about adjacent force

This year, Vietnamese sports will participate in the 31st SEA Games at home and ASIAD 19 as well as preparing for the 2024 Olympic qualifiers, so it will not be easy to consider choosing the key faces. In addition, Vietnamese sports are facing a great insecurity due to a lack of sustainable and stable development along with a shortage of adjacent forces. This situation shows that the search and fostering of young talents in Vietnamese sports is still inadequate.

The lack of adjacent force is also partly due to the SEA Games' 2-year cycle. The practice and training processes are all aimed at serving the SEA Games, with ASIAD and Olympic still having preparations but stopping at the seasonal level, lacking a specific strategy.

Nguyen Hong Minh, former Director of the High-Performance Sports Department under the General Department of Sports and Physical Training, once shared with the press: "Since 2019-2020, many young teams have been disbanded because the funding is only enough to investment in the national team, which should be in each sport, while the team and the youth team should be invested in parallel. In the localities, the young athletes' line is very weak, and no province hires foreign experts for the youth athletes' line."

In addition, the issue of investment in training young athletes and talented athletes is also limited. Despite bringing much glory to the country, the sports industry is still considered a dependent industry and must beg for funding, so it is not given due importance. In the condition that investment resources are still limited, socialisation has only achieved certain effects for a few sports.

At present, the sports industry is determined to change, and the planning of key sports, contents and athletes depends on the general direction of sports development. The trend of "reaching out to the great sea" is clear and lawful; it is necessary to put all efforts into Olympic sports.

However, this will be a long way to build the Vietnamese sport's image in the international arena.

Vietnamese sports are entering a new task, a new goal, but also a new arduous challenge, which requires perseverance to conquer further "horizons".

Quach Thi Lan entered the semi-final of the women's 400m hurdles event at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics. Photo: REUTERS