Taekwondo artist Tran Thi Ngoc Truc competed well on August 3 to reach the women’s final on the second day of competition in the first Asian Martial Arts Games in Thailand.
Truc, who won a gold medal at the 2006 World Youth Championship, defeated Shafiqua Kargar of Afghanistan in the semi-final of the women’s 45-51kg category. She will compete against Jang Eunsuk of the Republic of Korea in the final.
The World Taekwondo Federation listed Truc in the top 10 on their world rankings released in June. She competed in the women’s 53kg class at last year’s Beijing Olympics and is the first Vietnamese taekwondo athlete to rank among the world’s best.
In early matches on August 3, Truc beat Bhalekar Pooja Dattatray in the last eight and bested Quek Ju Lanetar of Singapore in the quarter-final.
In the quarter-final of the women’s class B (50-55kg) of pencak silat, Huynh Thi Thu Hong beat Nur Dinniyati Mohamad Julaima of Singapore to secure a spot in the semi-finals.
In muay thai, Vietnamese martial artist Le Huu Phuc lost to Tserennadmid Batbold in the quarter-final of the men’s 51-54kg category.
Kick-boxing was another event which Vietnamese martial artists participated in on August 3. Do Van Thong beat Bhardwaj Mohit of Indonesia in the preliminary round of the men’s 57kg division.
On the first day of competition, Southeast Asian Games gold medalist Van Ngoc Tu brought home the first silver medal after losing to the RoK ‘s Chung Jung-yeon in the women’s judo final.
Vietnam gained two more bronze medals in taekwondo on August 2 thanks to the martial art skills of Nguyen Quoc Hung and Van Thi Kim Thu.
Vietnam sent an 87-member team to the competition to compete in six of the nine events at the Games-wushu, taekwondo, pencak silat, muay, karate and judo. All of the martial arts styles originated in countries across Asia .
Nearly 40 countries are competing in this event.
For Vietnamese competitors the Games are being considered a warm-up for the third Asian Indoor Games, which will be hosted by Vietnam in November, before heading to Laos for the 25 th Southeast Asian Games in December./.
