Vietnam is now leading the Vovinam competition at the third Asian Indoor Games as it bagged a total of five gold medals on the first day of the games.

Than Lai Kim Long - the world defending champion - beat San Socheah from Cambodia 8-2 in the men’s 55kg final held in Ho Chi Minh City on Oct. 31 to take the title. Meanwhile, Phan Thi Ngoc Han crushed Laos ’s Vienkham Ladavan to come first in the women’s 55kg event.

Earlier, Pham Thi Phuong and Nguyen Van Cuong surpassed rivals from four other nations to take the first gold in the women’s self-defence event.

The quartet, including Nguyen Van Cuong, Phan Ngoc Toi, Nguyen Binh Dinh and Huynh Khac Nguyen, secured the second gold medal in the leg attack techniques category for the host country.

Cambodia temporarily ranked second in the Vovinam tournament, with one gold, three silver and one bronze medals. It was followed by Laos with two silvers and one bronze.

Meanwhile, in the blitz event of the chess competition in Quang Ninh province, China came first after nine games, while Vietnam and India finished second and third, respectively.

In the men’s futsal tourney, seven teams, namely Iran , Turkmenistan (Group A), Thailand , Japan (Group B), Uzbekistan, Kuwait (Group D), and Jordan (Group C) were already qualified for the quarter-finals.

The last ticket to the quarter-finals will be decided upon on Nov. 1 after two games between the host Vietnam & Jordan and Malaysia & Bahrain .

In the women’s event, the AIG champion defending Japan and Iran secured two tickets in Group B to advance to the semi-final round after defeating the group’s weakest team Uzbekistan .

In Group B, Thailand won the first berth, while the second is reserved for the winner in Nov. 1 match between Vietnam and Jordan .

In the Group B opener of the three-person basketball event, Vietnam beat Uzbekistan 34-31, while Saudi Arabia defeated Afghanistan 34-7.

The women’s basketball will kick off on Nov. 1 with the participation of five squads: India, Jordan, Kuwait, Thailand and Vietnam .

Billiard and snooker players the same day started to compete in 38 matches in three events, including men’s Carom 3 band, men’s 9 Ball Pool and men’s snooker at Phan Dinh Phung Gymnasium.

Almost all billiard and snooker players had perfect warm-up matches, except Praprut Chaithanasakul of Thailand who was surprisingly defeated by Kai Joji of Japan 11-40.

Ly The Vinh, an experienced snooker of the host country, swiftly and easily won the match against Lao contender, Xay Sana Somchai, with the score of 40-11.

Japanese player Umeda Ryuiji had an overwhelming victory 40-5 over Albuquayli Meshari from Kazakhstan .

Duong Anh Vu from Vietnam had a good start when defeating Goel Vijay from India 40-10.

The first day ended with victories of 12 snooker players in the qualifying round, who will continue to compete for medals in the quarterfinals on Nov. 1./.