Looking for stability
“The National Athletics Championship is always the most competitive competition. But for professionals, each coaching team determines the time for athletes to reach their professional peak. The 2024 National Athletics Championship will be held in November, which is when the Vietnam Athletics Team will no longer have any important international tournaments, so athletes will have enough opportunities to demonstrate their full expertise,” analyzed the representative of the Referee Board of the 2024 National Athletics Championship.
At this time, each event of Vietnamese athletics has outstanding faces showing achievements. They are athletes who are training at the Vietnam Athletics Team.
In the 400m and 400m hurdles for women, the faces are still Quach Thi Lan, Nguyen Thi Hang, Hoang Thi Minh Hanh, Nguyen Thi Ngoc or young athlete Le Thi Tuyet Mai. In the 100m group, the female faces are maintaining stable performance such as Ha Thi Thu, Le Thi Cam Tu, Kha Thanh Truc, Phung Thi Hue or the 3,000m obstacle event is Nguyen Thi Oanh, the marathon event is Hoang Thi Ngoc Hoa, Le Thi Tuyet... This year, the tournament has 52 participating units.
“Professional achievements are part of the evaluation of each unit’s investment. What we always want to ensure is that the athletics training movement in the whole country is maintained stably. Each unit that is invested in developing athletics, we are all happy for the coaches and athletes of that unit” - General Secretary of the Vietnam Athletics Federation Nguyen Manh Hung shared.
Important human resource problem
Vietnam's athletics team has competed in the 32nd SEA Games (May 2023), the 19th ASIAD (October 2023), and the 2024 Paris Olympics (August 2024). The Vietnamese athletics team has not achieved the most effective results in terms of the set targets. At the 32nd SEA Games, we only won 12 Gold Medals, while at the 19th ASIAD, Vietnam's athletics team did not win a Gold Medal, and at the 2024 Paris Olympics (France), we did not win an official spot.
The 2024 National Athletics Championship is a preliminary tournament for Vietnamese athletics to find forces to prepare for the two most important arenas, the 33rd SEA Games and the 20th ASIAD in 2026 with more than 500 athletes participating. Currently, the Vietnamese Athletics Team has gathered more than 60 athletes in the content groups at four National Sports Training Centers in Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City, Da Nang, and Can Tho.
The athletes' professional achievements at the 2024 National Championship will be the basis for the coaching staff of the Vietnam Athletics Team to select people for 2025.
"We will have professional assessments of athletes from national championship competitions, then carefully analyze and select suitable people for the team in 2025," Mr. Nguyen Manh Hung added.
How to solve the problem of achievements for Vietnamese athletics in important arenas is the requirement that has been set. The Athletics Department (Department of Physical Training and Sports) and the Vietnam Athletics Federation are building a Project for the development of Vietnamese athletics until 2030, with a vision to 2045. That is, Vietnamese athletics has a goal of investing in long-term development.
However, only when the above Project is approved and implemented will professionals see the practicality of investment. In fact, athletics is the most developed and the most basic sport that all sports focus on training and investing in development. Athletes and coaches are the basic resources to solve the problem of performance, but the most needed resource is still sustainable finance for implementation.
According to the representative of the Vietnam Athletics Federation, the goal of achieving success in international competitions in the period up to 2030 requires a large number of athletes. We still carry out the athlete selection program, starting from school sports.
