Today, two hopefuls for Vietnam’s sporting success, swimmer Nguyen Huy Hoang and badminton player Nguyen Thuy Linh, will compete in their respective events at the 2024 Paris Olympics.
Nguyen Huy Hoang is set to compete in the first heat of the men’s 800m freestyle at around 4 PM Hanoi time. The swimmer from Quang Binh has a personal best of 7 minutes 49.67 seconds in this event. Last year at the 19th Asian Games, Nguyen Huy Hoang won a bronze medal with a time of 7 minutes 51.44 seconds, which qualified him for the Paris 2024 Olympics. The top eight times to qualify for the final at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics was 7 minutes 47.73 seconds, indicating the level of competition Nguyen Huy Hoang will face.
At the same time, boxer Ha Thi Linh will compete in the round of 16 in the women’s 60kg category against China’s Yang Wenlu, the current world silver medalist. This is a crucial match for Ha Thi Linh, who will need to bring her best performance to advance.
Later, at 12:30 AM on Tuesday, badminton player Nguyen Thuy Linh will play her first group stage match in the women’s singles against Tiffany Ho of Australia. In her opening match, Tiffany Ho lost to the seeded player Beiwen Zhang with a significant margin, scoring 9-21, 4-21. The women’s singles event features 39 players divided into 13 groups, each with three players. Only the top player from each group will advance to the knockout stage.
Yesterday, three Vietnamese athletes competed: Pham Thi Hue, Le Thi Mong Tuyen, and Trinh Thu Vinh. Pham Thi Hue secured a spot in the quarterfinals of the women’s heavyweight single sculls by finishing second in the first repechage round with a time of 8 minutes 00.97 seconds. The quarterfinals feature 24 rowers, divided into four heats, with the top three from each heat advancing to the semifinals.
Le Thi Mong Tuyen scored 621.1 points in the women’s 10m air rifle qualification, finishing 40th out of 43 shooters, thus not advancing to the final. Meanwhile, in the more anticipated event for Vietnam, the women’s 10m air pistol final, Trinh Thu Vinh narrowly missed out on a medal, finishing fourth with 198.6 points, just 2.7 points behind the bronze medalist Manu Bhaker.
According to Olympic rules, Trinh Thu Vinh will receive a certificate for finishing in the top eight of an event. This certificate has been awarded since the 1896 Olympics, initially only to gold medalists. Since 1981, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) has awarded certificates to the top eight athletes in each event. As reported by The New York Times, many athletes are unaware of the existence of these certificates.
Trinh Thu Vinh’s fourth-place finish is the highest for a Vietnamese athlete at the Olympics since Hoang Xuan Vinh’s gold in the 10m air pistol and silver in the 50m pistol at the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Games. At the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, the highest finish for a Vietnamese athlete was fifth place by Hoang Thi Duyen in the women’s 59kg weightlifting event.
After two days of Olympic competition, 28 countries have won medals. Japan leads the medal table with four golds, two silvers, and one bronze, with their golds coming from judo (2), fencing (1), and skateboarding (1). Australia is in second place, followed by the United States in third, with China in sixth.
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