At SEA Games 33, the Vietnamese sports delegation won 87 gold medals, 81 silver medals and 110 bronze medals, ranking 3rd in the overall standings, thereby completing the set target.
However, in the Olympic lens, the overall picture of Vietnamese sports needs to be carefully considered. Accordingly, only more than half of Vietnam's gold medals come from sports in the competition program at the Los Angeles Olympics 2028.
In terms of ratio, Vietnam is at the bottom of the group of 6 leading Southeast Asian delegations, after Singapore, Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand and Malaysia. This shows that the SEA Games still brings achievements, but does not fully reflect the competitiveness in the continental and world arenas.
At SEA Games 33, Vietnam won many medals in non-Olympic sports such as karate, pencak silat, sepak takraw... These are all sports suitable for physical condition and domestic training traditions, but have few opportunities to transform into ASIAD or Olympic achievements.
The positive point of Vietnamese sports is the quality of athletes. The gold medal rate per Vietnamese athlete is in the high group in the region, only behind host Thailand. This shows that the spearheads invested in the right direction often bring efficiency.
However, the problem lies in the fact that that number of spearheads is not enough and has not met world standards in most events. The gap with the Olympics is clearly shown through professional parameters.
In athletics, many athletes won SEA Games gold medals with outstanding achievements in the region, but are still quite far from Olympic A standard.
Shooting is one of the few sports that shows positive signs. Trinh Thu Vinh and Pham Quang Huy have proven their competitiveness at ASIAD and approached the Olympic level.
Trinh Thu Vinh's achievements in recent major tournaments show clear progress in bravery and competitive psychology, a key factor in sports that require high accuracy.
Contrary to Thu Vinh, Quang Huy did not succeed at the SEA Games. This needs to set a new requirement, the sports industry needs to build a long-term roadmap to gradually shorten the gap with Asia and the world.
Swimming also receives expectations from familiar faces. Swimmer Nguyen Huy Hoang is maintaining stable form in Asia. However, for Vietnamese swimming to rise to the group to compete for medals at ASIAD, more international standard athletes and a long-term competition and training system abroad are needed.
Looking more broadly, Vietnamese sports need some core elements to break through at ASIAD and Olympics.
At the Conference to deploy the Strategy for Development of Physical Education and Sports (TDTT) in Vietnam to 2030, vision to 2045, the sports sector built a strategy to focus investment on key Olympic sports, instead of spreading it out according to the SEA Games goals.
In addition, the training system, sports science and international competition are also being concerned, aiming to familiarize athletes with peak intensity.
Meanwhile, in sports, it is necessary to invest in human resources, find talents at all ages to create depth of force, in order to avoid dependence on a few specific individuals. From there, continue to invest keyly in athletes who are capable of competing at ASIAD and Olympics.
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