16 athletes in 11 sports, compared to many countries and territories, is quite a lot, but they return empty-handed.
This is the second consecutive time that the Vietnamese sports delegation has not won a single medal at the Olympic 2024 playground. Sports fans are very disappointed, but they also sympathize with the athletes, because the friends have trained and competed to the best of their abilities.
The athletes are not at fault, but the sports sector is different.
The sports leaders have led Vietnamese sports to retreat. Agree that the Olympic playground is a vast sea, but Vietnamese sports have participated and won medals in the past. In the Olympic Games where troops were deployed, Vietnamese sports won a total of 5 medals, including 1 gold medal, 3 silver medals, and 1 bronze medal. At the 2016 Rio Olympics, shooter Hoàng Xuân Vinh won the first gold medal in the 10m air pistol men's event.
The two consecutive times of returning empty-handed are due to not investing correctly, not having a long-term strategy, and not training the competitive force to the level of the Olympics. Instead of advancing, winning more medals, they have failed.
Vietnamese sports are swimming in the "village" of Southeast Asia, sometimes also having a high ranking, so it's thought to be high. But when they come to the Olympic playground, they see that they are far behind, and our athletes are lost in the forest of global sports talent. Even Trịnh Thu Vinh, the only athlete expected, exclaimed: "The opponents are too strong".
The strategy to overcome the "village" is to choose the right sports in which Vietnam has the ability to compete, such as shooting, weightlifting, and investing in training athletes to international standards. Do not invest in a scattered manner, so that there is no star that can win a medal. Please note, do not always say that the purpose of competing is to learn, learning is good, but do not always just go to learn.
To have sports talent is not just to select the seeds, but to have an environment to nurture talent. Take care of, train, and invest in those talents, not just one person, a few days, but to select many people, many years, to choose a few people who are capable of competing at the Olympic playground.
However, there was a scandalous case of embezzling food portions of the young national table tennis team, causing public discontent.
High-performance sports, but the issue of food is not ensured to be nutritious, cannot train athletes to be able to overcome the "house", let alone the "village".
