Valuable Southeast Asian gold medal
Placing the gun on the support after winning the final of the women's 10m air rifle at the 2026 Southeast Asian Shooting Championship held in Taiwan (China), female shooter Phi Thanh Thao received many encouraging applause from her teammates and coaching staff present at the competition point. She won the number one position. After much anticipation, Phi Thanh Thao won the first international Gold Medal this year.
A year ago in Thailand, Phi Thanh Thao participated in the 2025 Southeast Asian Shooting Championships and she burst into emotions when she won the Gold Medal in the women's individual 10m air rifle event. That was the moment Phi Thanh Thao was completely satisfied with her performance in the final round and then finished in first place overall.
In fact, she said that winning achievements is difficult, but keeping them is even 10 times more difficult. After a year still in her forte, the women's 10m individual air rifle event, Phi Thanh Thao continues to ensure the championship achievement in Taiwan (China) as well as affirm her number one position in Southeast Asia.
For me, when stepping onto the podium, concentration is my top priority. I would like to thank my teammates for their encouragement and the Gold Medal at the 2026 Southeast Asian Shooting Championships. This is my first championship achievement in an international tournament in 2026," shooter Phi Thanh Thao quickly shared when finishing the competition.
Phi Thanh Thao is already a familiar athlete to Vietnamese Sports fans, especially those interested in shooting. Just one keyword search "Phi Thanh Thao" on the Google tool of the Internet, many articles and images about this female shooter are posted. Phi Thanh Thao once said that she is lucky to receive encouragement from fans, but this is also a motivation for her to strive to achieve good results in every tournament.
“I grew up in the training and competition environment of Army Sports. Therefore, I maintain discipline in my profession,” Phi Thanh Thao expressed to the media when receiving many questions about what motivation helped her achieve success until now? If considering professional achievements in the women's 10m individual air rifle event, Phi Thanh Thao is one of the shooters who achieved the most stability of the Vietnamese shooting team when continuously winning the Southeast Asian championship for two consecutive years (2025, 2026).
Each Congress is a meaningful struggle
The shooting range at the National High-Level Athlete Training Center was the place that witnessed Phi Thanh Thao grow up through years of training and competition. Among them, the moment that this female shooter remembers forever is when she was crowned champion in the final of the women's individual 50m three-position rifle shooting event at SEA Games 31, competing in 2022 in Vietnam. At that time, Phi Thanh Thao surpassed the direct competitor of the Thai shooting team to win the Gold Medal. This is the first individual Gold Medal at an SEA Games that Phi Thanh Thao has in her career.
She confided every time she remembers the moment of coronation at SEA Games 31: "I still remember that it was the time when I finished the final shootout and managed to look at the scoreboard to see that I had won the number one position. Behind me there were many people cheering and congratulating. I didn't think I could win the SEA Games at home. That dream has come true".
Phi Thanh Thao started her career in sports as a diving athlete. However, after nearly 5 years of training and competing in water sports, she decided to stop and find new challenges. Phi Thanh Thao's fate with shooting was very accidental. The female shooter said that she just wanted to get acquainted with shooting and did not intend to become a professional sports shooter. However, after a period of getting acquainted, the love for this sport has become a motivation for Phi Thanh Thao to focus on becoming a high-performance shooter.
Through each tournament, I learn and train as well as accumulate more expertise. From the techniques instructed by the coach, I myself also have to practice and grasp every technical element most accurately to be able to compete better," Phi Thanh Thao shared at SEA Games 33 in Thailand.
In her personal career, Phi Thanh Thao has competed in SEA Games 31, SEA Games 33 and ASIAD 19. Each level of competition is of the nature of a sports festival like that, she feels she has matured a lot. In her conclusion, Phi Thanh Thao clearly understands that when standing on the podium at the Games, a small mistake will make her lose the opportunity to compete for the highest result and if she wants to do it again, she must wait for a full cycle to come.
This year, the coaching staff of the Vietnamese shooting team placed a lot of faith in the key shooters preparing for ASIAD 20. Phi Thanh Thao is one of them. If she achieves high form, the opportunity to compete for the best results at ASIAD 20 is still wide open for this female shooter.
Phi Thanh Thao was born in 2004 in Hanoi. Currently, she is a shooter of the Vietnamese Shooting Team and the Army Sports Center. The female shooter competes in 3 specialized events including 10m women's air rifle, 50m three-position rifle and 10m mixed men's and women's team air rifle.
