Vietnam will earmark special investment for four Olympic sports during its program to prepare a well-trained force of athletes for the 2019 Asiad, to be hosted in Hanoi.

The General Department of Sports and Physical Training is developing the detailed training project, which is scheduled to be submitted to the government for approval in September, and be implemented in early 2014.

“The project will begin to track and select young talents starting from the Second Youth Olympic Games in 2014, in Nanjing, China for its training program,” said Lam Quang Thanh, deputy head of the general department.

Thanh said the sports to be contested at the 2019 Asiad will be divided into six groups depending on the scale of investment. 

Female gymnast Phan Thi Ha Thanh performs during the 2011 national gymnastics championship

 The top group, called SAO, which is an abbreviation of SEA Games, Asiad, and Olympic, includes four sports: shooting, weightlifting, gymnastics, and taekwondo.

“These sports will receive the largest investment so that Vietnamese athletes can grab the gold medals at the said three events,” he explained.

The other groups are the SAQ (SEA Games, Asiad, and Olympic’s Qualifying standard, including athletics, swimming, wrestling, boxing); and SA (SEA Games and Asiad, including karate, wushu, etc.)

Sports such as pencak silat, billiards and snooker, rowing, vovinam, bodybuilding, fencing, and cycling are respectively classified into the SEA (SEA Games) and SPO (potential) categories.

The last group, SPEX (effort), consists of sports that Vietnam is lagging far behind the world in, such as football, volleyball, badminton, and tennis.

Special investment

“The SAO and SAQ groups, and several sports from the SA group, will receive all forces of investments from all sectors, which is intended to avoid haphazard investment given our weak financial muscles,” Thanh said.

The project will seek the best talents out of some 10,000 young athletes countrywide in order to recruit them to the national teams and have them undergo special training programs for the Asiad campaign.

“The athletes will experience the best training methods, special nutrition programs, and medical care and psychological aid,” he said.

Asked if Vietnam will include certain sports that it is powerful in at the Asiad, Thanh said what’s important is whether the Vietnamese medalists at the competition can do the same in the Olympic arena.

“So the project is developed in a way that the Olympic sports are the most focused on,” he asserted.

In early November 2012, Vietnam won the bid to host the 2019 Asian Games, a victory that has triggered a wave of differing responses in the country.

The organizers said Vietnam will host Asia’s largest multi-sports event for only US$150 million, while previous hosts earmarked billions of US dollars for the event.

Other negative feedback concerns the poor results Vietnamese athletes are expected to suffer on home soil.

TTO