ASIAD and Olympic results are important metrics
The Department of Physical Training and Sports has identified 2025 as a pivotal year for us to prepare for many longer-term goals right after that, and so does Vietnamese athletics. Many opinions say that we must achieve good results at the 33rd SEA Games to regain the position of Vietnamese athletics.
However, many experts understand that above all, Vietnamese athletics must achieve concrete results in the Asian and international arenas instead of remaining in the Southeast Asian lowlands. At the 19th ASIAD (competing in 2023), Vietnamese athletics did not win any medals even though we had previously won 2 Gold Medals and 3 Bronze Medals at the 18th ASIAD in 2018.
“Solving the problem of professional achievements at the ASIAD arena is necessary for Vietnamese athletics. This is an important sport, receiving attention in sports as well as in congresses, so Vietnamese athletics will have to change dramatically,” said Mr. Pham The Trieu, Vice President of the Vietnam Athletics Federation. Through the years 2023 and 2024, Vietnamese athletics has seen that many faces have slowed down in terms of expertise, so we have not achieved good results as expected.
A year later, the Vietnamese Athletics Team will participate in the 20th ASIAD in 2026 held in Japan. General Secretary of the Vietnam Athletics Federation - Mr. Nguyen Manh Hung said that in the current preparation, we are aiming to hire foreign experts in some specific events and the professional approach will change more radically. Vietnamese Athletics has participated in the 2024 Paris Olympics (France) with 1 invitation (athlete Tran Thi Nhi Yen).
With a squad of 70 athletes starting to train for the 2025 events, the coaching staff of the Vietnam Athletics Team revealed that there are faces chosen for long-term professional preparation but need time to verify and will not be revealed to the media soon to ensure the best mentality.
Vietnam Athletics Development Project
This year, the Vietnam Athletics Federation will hold a new Congress. Personnel work is being prepared and there are high expectations that there will be new enthusiastic faces joining the Vietnam Athletics Federation to help the sport continue to develop.
Vietnam athletics experts are building a project to develop Vietnam athletics until 2030, with a vision to 2045. Vice President Pham The Trieu said that the project plays an important role in helping the country's athletics have the most specific development orientation. Therefore, to create a breakthrough, the project needs to be completed and put into implementation soon.
“We all know that professional training programs always need financial resources. Vietnam Athletics is making great efforts to seek social resources to join hands with the State to implement professional development programs for athletes. The project to develop Vietnam Athletics to 2030, with a vision to 2045, has been carefully developed and recorded many contributions from professionals and managers before being completed,” Mr. Nguyen Manh Hung added.
In the near future, the manager of the Vietnam Athletics Federation expressed his desire to establish a specialized training center for this sport. Currently, football is a special sport in the country that has specialized training centers while many other high-performance sports do not have them. The final deciding factor is funding. Therefore, the plan to call for socialized sponsorship continues to be the focus of the work of the Vietnam Athletics Federation in the new term.
