Archers struck two additional Olympic berths for Vietnam sports

Good news has come to the Vietnamese sports with archers Nguyen Hoang Phi Vu and Do Thi Anh Nguyet having both qualified for the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games in Japan.

Archer Nguyen Hoang Phi Vu (C) on the podium at the 2019 Asian Archery Championships in Thailand.
Archer Nguyen Hoang Phi Vu (C) on the podium at the 2019 Asian Archery Championships in Thailand.

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Thanks to Vu and Nguyet’s excellent performance in the recurve event at the 2019 Asian Archery Championships in Thailand on November 28, this is the first time that Vietnamese archers have qualified for an Olympic quota place.

In the qualifiers for men's recurve, Vu and his teammate Chu Duc Anh excelled to join each other in the final. In the final match, Vu showed his stable performance to beat his teammate 7-1 to win the gold medal and also claim a ticket to Tokyo 2020.

In the women's side, Nguyet and her teammate Loc Thi Dao had to face each other in the quarter-finals. Although one of them would be eliminated, this meant that Vietnam certainly had a representative in the semi-finals.

Nguyet was better on the day as she beat her senior 6-4 to progress. However, the Vietnamese female archer could not make it through in the semis, where she was beaten 2-6 against top seed India’s Kumari Deepika. Although failing to book the final berth, Nguyet still brought good news for Vietnam archery as she won in the third-place playoff match.

According to regulations, the top three athletes from different countries in each event will win direct tickets to Tokyo 2020, so both Vu and Nguyet have officially qualified Olympic quota places.

Archer Do Thi Anh Nguyet has won a ticket to Tokyo 2020 for Vietnam.

A day earlier, Nguyen Van Day earned a historic silver medal for Vietnamese archery at the tournament as he won a silver medal in the men’s compound discipline. This is Vietnam’s first silver medal ever at the regional tournament. However, Day will not participate in Tokyo 2020 as the compound event is not included in the Olympic programme.

At the end of the tournament, the Vietnamese archery team won one gold, two silver and one bronze medal, combined with earning two Olympic spots, as the tournament was also the Asian continental qualification for Tokyo 2020.

The results have helped add confidence to the archers before the upcoming 2019 Southeast Asian Games in the Philippines. Both Vu and Nguyet will represent Vietnam in the 30th edition of the biennial multi-sport event.

To date, Vietnam sports have won four official tickets to Tokyo 2020. Before Vu and Nguyet’s results, Nguyen Huy Hoang (swimming) and Le Thanh Tung (gymnastics) had previously qualified for the biggest sporting event in the world next year.