Who and what contributed to thisresounding success? Let’s look back at the country’s heroes and heroinesover the past 11 days.
Athletics has been amain source of gold medals for Vietnam in recent games and this year thesport continued spearheading the country’s hunt for gold medals,bringing home 11 gold medals, the most among all the sports at theGames, and with three news records set.
Thesuccess must be contributed to the rising of young athletes, who provedthat they have the capability to fill the gap left behind by theretirement of big names like Vu Thi Huong and Truong Thanh Hang.
The most noticeable face is Nguyen Thi Huyen as she marked her debutat the games with a great success, winning three gold medals and set twonew records, in the women’s 400m hurdles and the women’s 4x400m teamevent.
Swimming emerged as one of the goldearners for the first time. Vietnamese swimmers won 10 gold medals, twosilvers and four bronzes at a single SEA Games to finish second at thesport, only behind Singapore.
They alsoestablished nine new records at the Games, seven by superstar Nguyen ThiAnh Vien, who alone contributed eight gold medals, one silver and onebronze, and the two remaining was set by Hoang Quy Phuoc and Lam QuangNhat.
Meanwhile, gymnastics continued their domination at the games as it did in the past to win nine gold medals.
While veteran Phan Thi Ha Thanh maintained her form to win goldmedals in her favourite events, new face Dinh Phuong Thanh had asuccessful SEA Games with four gold medals.
The country’s most fourth successful sport is fencing, which earned Vietnam eight gold medals.
Nguyen Tien Nhat and his teammates proved too strong for opponents towin eight out of 12 events to rank first in the sport, making itVietnamese fencing’s most successful game so far.
Vietnamese rowers also demonstrated their strength with 13 medals,eight of which are gold. This is the most ever successful game forVietnamese rowing.
Taekwondo and shooting produced decent results, wining five and four gold medals, respectively.
The 28th SEA Games ended with a grand ceremony on June 16 evening.-VNA