Nearly a year after the 31st SEA Games, Southeast Asian countries will again gather at five competition venues in Cambodia to prepare to compete at the 32nd SEA Games, the event with a record number of sports.
According to Deputy Director of the National Sports Administration (NSA) Tran Duc Phan, Cambodia is preparing very carefully and thoughtfully for the 32nd SEA Games. The host country is expected to host 36 sports with 583 events. The Vietnamese sports delegation is expected to participate in 452 events across 31 sports with the goal of entering the top three in the medal tally.
In order to prepare for the 32nd SEA Games and the related tasks of ASIAD 19 in Hangzhou (China) in September and the Olympic qualifiers in Paris 2024, the national teams were gathered at five locations: the Hanoi National Sports Training Centre with 800 athletes, 160 coaches, 12 experts; the Ho Chi Minh National Sports Training Centre with 586 athletes, 121 coaches, two experts; the Da Nang National Sports Training Centre with 258 athletes, 58 coaches, two experts; the Can Tho National Sports Training Centre with 33 athletes, nine coaches, one expert; and Bac Ninh Sport University with 47 athletes and 10 coaches.
At the 32nd SEA Games, the host country will not organise a number of Olympic sports including shooting, archery, sailing, chess, gymnastics, wushu, futsal, bodybuilding, kurash, and others. These are basic Olympic sports that Vietnam has strength in. In addition, many other events of Vietnam's strengths were also restricted in the number of participating athletes.
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Members of the athletics team practice towards the 32nd Sea Games. (Photo Thuy Nguyen) |
However, Vietnamese sports also have advantages at this SEA Games. That is the growing interest of the government at all levels, sectors, and the whole society, especially after the success of the 31st SEA Games. Currently, athlete training has inherited the system of facilities and equipment of SEA Games 31, so the conditions are better than before.
Immediately after the end of the 31st SEA Games, through determining the subjects and content that are likely to win medals, specialised units have selected athletes, found good, experienced coaches, hired qualified experts, and also established a council to select, examine and evaluate the training of teams in each training period.
One of the difficulties that Vietnamese sports delegation need to take into account is that the weather in Cambodia is very hot and windy. Currently, the NSA is looking for solutions to overcome this issue, such as bringing athletes to a place with similar weather and climate to Phnom Penh to help athletes get used to the weather conditions.
There is not much time to prepare for the 32nd SEA Games, while this is also the period to prepare for ASIAD 19, and the 2024 Olympic qualifiers. Therefore, the NSA will have to calculate the force so that able to perform both tasks at the 2024 Olympic qualifiers and perform well at the 32nd SEA Games.
To do so, the coaching staff of the teams must adjust the performance points of the athletes so that they can complete both tasks. From February 15, the NSA has increased the nutrition budget for athletes to 480,000 VND/person/day. Currently, some experts are developing short-term training plans, such as the judo team training in Mongolia for about 20 days and the taekwondo team training in the Republic of Korea for about a month.
SEA Games is an appropriate arena for Vietnamese sports, Vietnam has the ability to achieve a high position on the final rankings. In order to integrate with the regional arena as well as support the host country Cambodia, Vietnam has also registered to participate in some of the host's traditional sports such as: ouk chatrang, kun bokator, and kun Khmer. Hopefully with careful preparation, the Vietnamese sport delegation will complete the goal set for the Games by being in the top three and winning about 100 gold medals.
