Vietnamese archers set medal target at 17th Asian Games

(Bqp.vn) - Vietnam’s nine-member archery team, comprising six athletes and three officials, will depart for Incheon, Republic of Korea (RoK) on September 19 for the 17th Asian Games (Asiad), with its medal hopes pinned on archers Nguyen Tien Cuong and Loc Thi Dao, who are named among the 64 athletes to receive key assistance from the sports sector.

Vietnamese archers are looking forward to winning their first-ever Asiad medal at the 17th Games.

Vietnamese archery’s medal target is quite achievable, with its strength in the men’s team and individual compound (three strings) and the women’s team recurve (one string) events, according to national team coach, Dinh Chi Dung.

In those disciplines, Vietnam possesses many promising young athletes with abundant experience in international competition, such as Loc Thi Dao, Do Thi Huong, Phuong Linh, Quyen Trang, Duong Thi Kim Lien, Nguyen Tien Cuong, Vu Viet Anh, Nguyen Tuan Anh, Dao Trong Kien and Nguyen Thanh Tuan, Dung said.

He added that Vietnamese archers had gone through a RoK training course, sponsored by the RoK’s Doosan Heavy Industries and Construction, from May 10-21, as part of efforts to get well-prepared for the 17th Asiad. Additionally, the Vietnam also sent its archery competitors to the second Asian Archery Grand Prix 2014 held in Taiwan from August 9-16. Overseas training and participation in international tournaments had enabled Vietnamese archers to hone their skills and gain more experience, and provided them with important rehearsals ahead of their Asiad campaign, Dung said.

The General Department of Sports and Physical Training has bought the national archery team two new sets of equipment to create the most favourable conditions for the athletes’ Asiad preparations at the National Sports Training Centre. The archers have also been served with a suitably nutritious diet to ensure they are always in best physical form.

It can be said that the archery movement has seen strong growth across the country over the past few years, despite the provinces’ limited budgets for sports activities, which is reflected through the increasing number of local people playing this kind of sport. As many as 19 teams nationwide have participated in national archery competitions so far. For instance, the 2014 National Youth Archery Championships, hosted in the northern province of Hai Duong from July 14-21, drew the participation of nearly 100 archers on 15 teams from all over the country, with Hanoi sending the most players (23). Thirteen new records were established during the week-long event.

Apart from the domestic spread of the archery movement, Vietnamese archers also showed considerable improvement in their performances and results on the international stage. They made the women’s recurve final on their debut at the 16th Asiad in Guangzhou, China four years ago, and snatched the solitary team compound gold medal at 26th Southeast Asian (SEA) Games before surprising everyone by two gold and one silver medal in the 27th SEA Games two years later.

With such encouraging progress in the four years since its Asiad debut, Vietnamese archery has been looking for its first-ever Asiad medal at the upcoming 17th Games set to take place in Incheon from September 19 to October 5.

The Vietnam archery team to the 17th Asian Games:

Three-member coaching staff: Dinh Chi Dung (coach), Cap Manh Tan (trainer) and Ngo Hai Nam (trainer).

Six athletes: Nguyen Tien Cuong, Nguyen Tuan Anh, Nguyen Thanh Tuan, Loc Thi Dao, Duong Thi Kim Lien, Nguyen Thi Quyen Trang.

(Source: Nhan Dan)