Vietnamese sports in search of medals at Olympic Games

Hanoi (VNA) – Vietnamese sports has been a frequent patron of the Olympic Games, the world’s biggest sporting event, but what it has achieved so far has fallen short of the country’s sports fans.

So far, having competed at eight Olympic Games with a total of 103 athletes since 1980, Vietnam has only won two silver medals in total. It is still in search of more medals, including the elusive gold, as the athletes arrived in Brazil on August 3 for the 31st Olympic Games.

The 1980 Olympic Games in Moscow, in the former Soviet Union, was the first Games Vietnam attended as an independent and unified country. Then Vietnam’s sports delegation had 31 athletes, which is still a record for Vietnam in terms of the number of athletes competing at an Olympics. But the 31 athletes failed to gain any medals.

The country did not attend the 1984 Games in Los Angeles, the US, when the Communist bloc all boycotted the Games.

At the next three Games in Seoul, the Republic of Korea, 1988, Barcelona, Spain, 1992 and Atlanta, the US 1996, the country once again failed to secure any medals.

The breakthrough only came in the 2000 Games in Sydney, Australia, when Taekwondo player Tran Hieu Ngan won a silver medal in the women’s lightweight 57kg category.

But four years later, the Vietnamese sports delegation of 13 athletes left Athens, Egypt, empty-handed.

The country won its second medal, also a silver medal, at the 2008 Games in Beijing, China. Hoang Anh Tuan came in second in the men’s 56kg weightlifting event.

No medal was gained by the country’s sports delegation at the London 2012 Games in the UK.

As the 2016 Games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, is about to roll out, Vietnam is still in search of more medals.-VNA