Vietnam took five out of six gold medals in the performance events during the opening day of the first World Vovinam Championships on July 28, leaving just one to be won by France.

In the combat events, five of the six finalists were from the home country and four won gold medals. Iran bagged one gold medal in the men’s 68 kg category and Russia took home a gold in the men’s 72 kg category.

The championships, which will last for two days in Ho Chi Minh City , have attracted 150 athletes and officials from 14 countries across the world.

The Vietnamese hosts set a goal of winning 10-12 gold medals in the performance events and four in the combat events to rank first in the medals tally.

This competition will help the five Asian countries taking part to prepare for the third Asian Indoor Games that Vietnam will host in November.

Among the 14 participating countries, including Australia, Belarus, Cambodia, France, Germany, India, Iran, Italy, Poland, Russia, Romania, Thailand, Ukraine and Vietnam, Indonesia sent the second largest squad of 23 athletes following Vietnam, whose team was 45 strong.

The Vovinam Championships were founded in Hanoi in 1938 by Nguyen Loc.

Based on wrestling, Vietnamese traditional martial arts and a blend of other martial arts such as kung fu, judo and taekwondo, Loc invented a new style called vovinam (Internationalising Vietnamese martial arts).

For 70 years, vovinam has been developing and spreading throughout many parts of the world and the WVF currently has 28 member federations.

It is considered by some to be a philosophy of culture and sportsmanship.

The third Asian Indoor Games is an important launching pad for the development of vovinam as it will become the first Vietnamese sport to be included in an international competition./.