Finding the best preparation
Group 1, the key group that has been highly regarded by the Vietnamese sports industry as having the important task of achieving results at the Olympic arena and some events at the ASIAD, includes athletics, swimming, shooting, gymnastics, weightlifting, rowing, cycling, archery, badminton and small weight categories in combat sports such as taekwondo, boxing, judo, wrestling. These sports are all included in the competition program at the 33rd SEA Games.
At the 32nd SEA Games held last year in Cambodia, Vietnamese sports marked the first time we ranked first overall at a Games held outside Vietnam in terms of medal tally. More importantly, we led the total number of gold medals in Olympic events held at the SEA Games. In theory, athletics and swimming are two key events that Vietnamese sports have invested a lot in, and all medals of these two events were held at the 33rd SEA Games.
However, after a year, whether Vietnamese sports will win the most Gold Medals in these two sports is still a question mark. In particular, the failure of Vietnamese athletics at the 32nd SEA Games last year has forced managers to find ways to make positive changes in their profession. Swimming has also begun to look for more suitable people to win more Gold Medals instead of just relying on key players such as Nguyen Huy Hoang, Tran Hung Nguyen, Pham Thanh Bao. The 33rd SEA Games will open on December 9, 2025. Vietnamese sports and other sports in the region have more than a year to prepare.
From SEA Games 33 to ASIAD 20
Sports industry managers have identified the 33rd SEA Games as a preparation to have the most suitable force towards the 20th ASIAD taking place in 2026. In the key sports mentioned above (group one), the requirement is certainly to have the appropriate force to be ready for the 20th ASIAD.
"We also have preparations for ourselves, especially because gymnastics is a special sport, so people must be ready from now on," said Bui Trung Thien, head of the gymnastics department (Department of Physical Education and Sports).
“Athletics continues to look for young athletes to enter important events such as the 400m and 400m hurdles. In the next two years, athletes who want to be successful must have a professional start in competing at the SEA Games. Of course, finding outstanding people is not easy, it takes time,” Nguyen Manh Hung, head of the athletics department (Department of Physical Education and Sports), analyzed.
Representatives of the sports industry are working with each department to plan the goals, forces and determine which athletes will participate in this arena. Sports expert Nguyen Hong Minh expressed his opinion that if long-term preparation is needed, skipping the SEA Games stage to focus on the ASIAD or the Olympics as the sports industry analyzed at the Conference on orientations for the development of high-performance sports in Vietnam towards 2030 (held in December 2023), the Department of Physical Education and Sports still has to do it.
For example, the 2024 National Fencing Championship taking place in Hanoi, sports managers also consider professional results as a condition to find young athletes to prepare for the 20th ASIAD and further to find Olympic spots. Fencing is a sport with a tradition of winning Gold Medals at the SEA Games of Vietnamese sports, but when entering the ASIAD and Olympic arenas, we cannot overwhelm our opponents.
