Nguyen Thanh Duy of Vietnam (left) on his way to winning U60kg gold medal at the 30th SEA Games in 2019 in the Philippines. Duy and his teammates will warm-up for the SEA Games at the Southeast Asian championship later this month in Cambodia. (Photo: VNA) A team of 19 athletes will compete in the event from March 21 to 27 at theRoyal University of Phnom Penh, Cambodia.
Seven other countries, Thailand, Laos, Myanmar, Singapore, the Philippines,Malaysia, Brunei and Indonesia, will be represented in the tournament, alongwith the hosts.
Vath Chamroeun, secretary-general of the National Olympic Committee of Cambodia(NOCC), said it will be one of the major pre-SEA Games events.
The championship will be the biggest and the first international karate-relatedevent in the Kingdom for a number of years.
Vu Son Ha, head of the Karate Department of the Vietnam Sports Administration,said: “Our strongest athletes will compete at the regional competition inCambodia this month. It will be our final test prior to the 31st Games. Theparticipants are our SEA Games title favourites.”
Among them are defending champion Nguyen Thanh Duy, silver medallists Do ThanhNhan and Dinh Thi Huong, and bronze medal holders Nguyen Thi Phuong, Dang HongSon, Ho Thi Thu Hien and Trang Cam Lanh, and former Karate1-Premier Leaguechampion Nguyen Thi Ngoan.
Over the past year, the COVID-19 pandemic prevented the team from taking partin intensive training and quality competitions.
The team missed chance to win a place at the Tokyo Olympics as they could notfind a flight to compete at any of the qualification rounds.
However, at the Asian championship last December in Kazakhstan, Hoang Thi MyTam won a record three golds for Vietnam.
The 18-year-old fighter is tipped to get top results in future tournamentsincluding the SEA Games.
“All teams will prepare very well inthis regional championship. My athletes are asked to train hard and strictly followthe coaching board’s tactics,” Ha said.
Local coaches take lead
Local coaches are understood to play a major role for the national team at the HanoiGames this summer.
Le Tung Duong will be head coach. He will be assisted by Duong Hoang Long and NguyenVan Su in kumite (combat) and Le Tien Nguyen and Nguyen Hoang Ngan in kata(performance).
“Vietnamese coaches are doing good job," Ha said.
"We will improve the quality of our team through international trainingcourses and competitions. Athletes will sharpen their skills through reallycompetitive combat where they have chances to approach new karatetechniques."
He said that three gold medals from the recent Asian championship made karateofficials believe in the ability of local coaches. These results were muchbetter than the period that foreign coaches came to train the team some yearsago.
“We believe that the current coaches will continue helping Vietnam karate toget good results at the SEA Games,” Ha said.
Head coach Duong also confirmed that his fighters are in high alert ahead ofthe SEA Games. All are confident and can’t wait to fight at the Games althoughthey are warned to face with strong and experienced rivals.
“Due to the lack of competition so we can’t evaluate arch-rivals such asThailand, Indonesia and Malaysia. It will be biggest challenge to both coachesand athletes of Vietnam,” Duong said.
“Therefore, we have to train and compete with 100 percent focus to make sure weachieve the best possible results.”
Karate competition will be held in Ninh Binh province from May 16-20. Therewill have 15 events including seven for men and eight for women.
Vietnam aims to win between four and five gold medals which will make themtop-three team on home soil competition. It would be twice as many as they wonin the Philippines three years ago.
In Manila in 2019, Vietnamese athletes pocketed two golds, three silvers andsix bronzes./.
VNA
