After Tran Thi Ngoc Truc’s defeat in the women’s taekwondo 49kg class on Wednesday, Nguyen Thi Hoai Thu was counted on to bring home a medal for the Vietnamese taekwondo team.
However, Vietnam’s taekwondo coaching staff were caught overconfident and ill-prepared leading into Thu’s first match.
At a meeting to analyze Truc’s failure on Wednesday, the coachingstaff had proclaimed that Thu “wouldn’t face the same difficulty in her first two encounters.”
“Thu will have little difficulty reaching the quarterfinals,” the coaching staff said.
However, a close review of the opponent’s competition history should have signaled a red flag for the Vietnamese team, as Thu’s first opponent, 22-year-old Senegalese Diedhiou Bineta had better international achievements than the 23-year-old Thu.
The Senegalese competitor had come in third place at the 2005 international taekwondo championship in Madrid, Spain while Thu was only placed fifth in the Asian taekwondo championship and ninth in the international championship in Beijing last year.
Thus, overconfidence and mistaken projections from the coaching staff may have led to Thu’s poor preparation and dismal match performance.
Thu’s failure almost ends Vietnam’s taekwondo medal hopes in this Olympics as five times Southeast Asian Games winner Nguyen Van Hung is set to face some tough competition in the men’s 80kg-andover category.
The draw puts Hung, who will begin competing tomorrow, among powerful contenders like the current world champ from Mali, the 2004 Olympic silver medalist from Greece and the Asian champion from the Republic of Korea.
Reported by Xuan Lam – Ngoc Anh |
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