We feel his effort represented our country’s climb to integrate with other world-class athletes and level the field of achievements in sports.
Remember back to the Barcelona Olympics in 1992, we were so happy just to send a handful of athletes to the world’s grandest sports stage.
When Tran Hieu Ngan surprisingly won silver in taekwondo at the 2000 Sydney Olympics, for the first time Vietnam’s name was written on the list of Olympic medals.
Eight years later, we were aiming to achieve more but had fallen short, especially in taekwondo considering the amount of investment we had put into this sport.
It’s time for us to rethink our strategies to enhance our athletes’ abilities so they can perform competitively on the world stage.
It’s not that our athletes aren’t able to achieve incredible results.
It depends on our sport officials to mold our talents in the right fashion track.
For Chinese athletes, this Olympic Games proved groundbreaking for their accomplishments in sports they are traditionally not good at, particularly weightlifting.
The Republic of Korea meanwhile had chosen archery as its sport of focus, emphasizing the ability to be precise over physical ability.
We have to figure out what sports we should intensively develop that are suitable for our athletes.
While heavily investing in gymnastics and even with sending Ngan Thuong to study in China, we probably won’t have much of a chance in this sport.
I still believe Vietnam has the ability to compete in taekwondo and judo at the world level.
Let us cultivate these hopes into reality.
By Thanh Thao |
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