High-jumper makes Olympic qualifying mark

Duong Thi Viet Anh will be the second representative of Vietnam's track-and-field team at the upcoming London Olympics after success on Juky 2 at the Asian All Star Athletics Meet in Almaty, Kazakhstan.
Duong Thi Viet Anh will be the second representative of Vietnam's track-and-field team at the upcoming London Olympics after success on Juky 2 at the Asian All Star Athletics Meet in Almaty, Kazakhstan.

High jumper Anh leapt a career best 1.92m, achieving the Olympic B Standard which is enough for her to compete in London .

Anh's previous personal best is 1.90m which she set at last November's Southeast Asian Games in Indonesia.

She is one of Vietnam 's hopefuls at the Kazakhstan tournament, although many people has written off her Olympic chances after she failed to come close to her best in recent competition.

Anh surprised her critics with her jump and became the second track-and-field athlete after walker Nguyen Thi Thanh Phuc and the last member of the Vietnam delegation for London .

Apart from Anh, two other Vietnamese also won medals in Kazakhstan but could not grab their own Olympic berths.

Asian champion Truong Thanh Hang pocketed a silver in the women's 800m with a time of 2:1.70 while sprinter Vu Thi Huong is third in the women's 100m event clocking 11.70.

There will be 19 Vietnamese athletes competing in 11 sports at the Olympics, starting on July 27.

Most of them are in intensive training abroad.

Vietnamese track-and-field athletes and gymnasts will arrive in London on July 10, followed by the rest of the team 10 days later.

The Vietnam team is expected to comprise of 58 members including athletes, trainers and officials, led by Lam Quang Thanh, deputy head of the National Sports Administration.-VNA

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