Canadian wrestler Carol Huynh, who is of Vietnamese origin, on Wednesday won a bronze medal at the London Olympics women’s freestyle 48kg event, after having beaten Vietnamese rival Nguyen Thi Lua in the qualifier on the same day.

Huynh, who was the gold medalist at Beijing 2008, secured a 3 – 0 victory against Isabelle Sambou of Senegal in the bronze medal match.

Facing Huynh at the qualifier, Lua of Team Vietnam did not have a single chance as she was trounced 0 – 5 by the 32-year-old wrestler, who was born in Canada.

The Canadian failed to make it to the gold medal match as she was beaten 1 – 3 by Obara Hitomi of Japan in the semifinal. Hitomi won the gold medal for the event.

The London dream thus ended at a very early stage for the Vietnamese wrestler, just like her teammate, taekwondo martial artist Le Huynh Chau, who also started his medal journey on Wednesday.

Chau fought against the second seed, Wei Chen Yang of Taiwan, who is also the Asiad reigning champion, at the men’s –58kg qualifier, where he quickly lost 1 – 5.

The defeat was expected, although Chau had previously scored two victories against the 20-year-old opponent in other competitions.

Under Olympic rules, Chau still had a chance to fight in a play-off match for a ticket to the bronze medal match if Yang qualified for the final.

However, that didn’t happen, as the Taiwanese later lost 7 – 10 to Alexey Denisenko of Russia in the quarterfinal.

Small chance for high jumper

Team Vietnam will see high jumper Duong Thi Viet Anh competes at the women’s high jump qualification today at 9:30am UK time.

The event will include the participation of 35 athletes, and Anh has been allotted to jump in Group A with 16 contenders, including the Beijing 2008 bronze medalist, Anna Chicherova of Russia.

At least the 12 best jumpers will qualify for the final.

Anh is not expected to grab the final ticket, and the 21-year-old is simply aiming to improve her results.

Her results remain stable at around 1.92m, which helped her achieve the Olympic standard B, during her practice session, her coach, Cao Thanh Van, told Tuoi Tre from London.

“However, her knee injury has recently relapsed,” he said. “So we did not set any target for her."

(Tuoitrenews)