Afternoon 8.8 (Vietnam time), the last athlete of the Vietnamese sports delegation at the 2024 Olympics, Nguyễn Thị Hương, completed her event in the C1 - 200m category at the canoeing event. Like her teammates, Nguyễn Thị Hương did not qualify for the medal group.
Nguyễn Thị Hương finished with a result of 49 seconds in the qualifying round - last in her heat, and could only advance to the quarterfinals of the ranking group.
The Vietnamese sports delegation set off for France with a simple goal of "striving" for a medal. 16 athletes in 11 sports, compared to many countries and territories, is quite a large number. However, it is not strong.
Almost only the shooting event, with shooter Trịnh Thu Vinh, is the only expected factor. In reality, this has been proven, when Thu Vinh advanced to the final in both events.
Very effortful but the best result that the 23-year-old shooter achieved was a fourth-place finish in the 10m air pistol event. In the 25m sport pistol event, Thu Vinh was eliminated in the final.
At some points, Thu Vinh's shots brought hope, but basically, at the critical moment that requires stability, the shooter from Thanh Hóa, as well as most of the other Vietnamese athletes, when they come to the top-level playground, their mental state cannot be maintained stable.
In the cycling event, some of Nguyễn Thị Thật's achievements in recent years also made many people expect something at the 2024 Olympics. But ultimately, it was only when they came to the big stage that they realized the gap was still very large.
Anyway, the fact that the 31-year-old cyclist was among the few Asian athletes to complete the 158km race is something to be encouraged.
In the combat sports - including direct combat on the mat, across the net, or simultaneous combat, the gap in skill is truly too large. Hoàng Thị Tình in judo lost and was eliminated in the first round. Võ Thị Kim Ánh was also eliminated in the boxing event, where Hà Thị Linh did better by advancing to the 1/8 finals.
Nguyễn Thùy Linh and Lê Đức Phát won impressively in the first round of the badminton group stage, but before a stronger opponent in the second round, the result was a loss.
Lê Thị Mộng Tuyền did not qualify for the 10m air rifle event, Võ Thị Mỹ Tiên and Nguyễn Huy Hoàng in swimming were truly out of their depth in the green lane swimming event.
Phạm Thị Huệ, like Nguyễn Thị Hương, only competed until the end in the rowing qualifying round. Trần Thị Nhi Yến in athletics only managed to pass the preliminary round.
Đỗ Thị Ánh Nguyệt and Lê Quốc Phong were even less hopeful in the archery event with many extremely talented opponents.
Finally, Trịnh Văn Vinh failed in the weightlifting event when he failed to lift the weight in the snatch event, so he did not qualify for the clean and jerk event.
For the second consecutive Olympics, the sports of Vietnam did not win a medal. The problem is not that the athletes are at fault or not, but in the lesson learned, the sports of Vietnam want to rise to the expected level, they must change many things.
