Vietnamese sports have made significant progress at the SEA Games and regional tournaments, but their achievements at the ASIAD and Olympics are still limited, showing signs of falling behind strong sports.
Therefore, to improve achievements, the Vietnam Department of Physical Education and Sports has chaired and coordinated with relevant agencies to develop a Program for developing key sports to prepare for participation in the Olympics and ASIAD for the 2026-2046 period.
Accordingly, Vietnamese sports have preliminarily selected 17 key sports with the number of athletes trained each year falling in the range of 165 -170 people, divided into 2 groups.
Group 1 is the events and sports that can compete for Olympic medals: shooting, archery, weightlifting, taekwondo, boxing, fencing, boat racing, badminton (concentrating on long-term training and coaching abroad for about 100 - 110 athletes).
Group 2 is the events and sports that are likely to compete for medals at the ASIAD: athletics, judo, karate, wushu, gymnastics, weightlifting, swimming, cloud golf, cycling (combined with domestic training and sending for short-term training and competition abroad under a special regime: 65 - 70 athletes).
However, at the Workshop on giving comments on the Program's development (March 28), Mr. Nguyen Hong Minh - former Director of the Department of High Performance Sports emphasized that Vietnamese sports need to escape the situation of spreading out, focusing on practical strengths.
"In fact, there are still many identified key sports, because for all the sports-rich countries in the world, no country has more than 10 key sports.
Vietnam previously had 10 group 1 and 22 group 2 subjects, so we have up to 32 key subjects and we allocate money for those subjects. Therefore, I suggest that we should reduce the number of key subjects so that we can have enough investment strength," said Mr. Minh.
Meanwhile, the achievement goals of Vietnamese sports are also specifically outlined, corresponding to each different stage. However, this goes hand in hand with challenges for the sports industry and each sport receives key investment.
In the 2026-2030 period, Vietnam needs to maintain its position in the top 3 of the SEA Games; top 20 of the ASIAD with 5 gold medals (2026) and 6 gold medals (2030); strive for medals at the 2028 Olympics; men's football enters the top 10 in Asia and women's football is the top 8 in Asia.
Next to the period 2030-2036, Vietnamese sports must be maintained in the top 3 SEA Games. Notably, in the ASIAD arena, the target had to win 7 gold medals in 2034 (shooting, archery, karate, boat racing, boxing, boxing) and reached the top 20.
In the 2036 - 2046 period, Vietnamese sports need to maintain the top 2 at the SEA Games, top 15 at the ASIAD and top 50 at the Olympics. In particular, men's football entered the top 8 in Asia, qualifying for the World Cup; women's football in the top 8 in Asia and qualifying for World Cups.
However, Mr. Nguyen Hong Minh commented: "We should only focus on the contents in the ASIAD and Olympic competitions where Vietnamese athletes can compete for medals.
If the SEA Games target is added, it means increasing the content and number of events competed in, leading to the concentration of resources. Doing the right key content can help coaches and athletes improve their expertise, aiming for the continental and world playground".
Regarding this, the Vietnam Department of Physical Education and Sports said it will review and re-evaluate the indicators in the Program. According to the schedule, the Program will be submitted by the sports industry to the Government for approval in 2025.
