Nation takes gold in shuttlecock

(07-11-2009)

Viet Nam's two golds shuttlecock confirms top status in world.

HA NOI — Despite injury, Nguyen Thi Be Sau paired with Nguyen Thi Thuy Tien brought home a gold in the women’s doubles shuttlecock event at the Asian Indoor Games yesterday in Ha Noi.

Their male team mates, Nguyen Tiet Cuong and Le Trieu added another gold.

Their two golds completed the target of at least three medals for the team at the Games and played a key role to confirm the top position of Viet Nam in the world of shuttlecock.

It is estimated that the host athletes are going to pocket two more golds from the singles events as they all easily went through the qualifiers yesterday.

Viet Nam, after eight days of competition, still remains in second place at the AIG. Apart from two shuttlecock golds, the host athletes also pocketed two other golds in wushu events.

Suffering an ankle injury in the semi-final match, Be Sau remained determined to win a double’s event gold medal to take the place of the one she missed after losing in the team final on Tuesday.

The Vietnamese pair, who are world reigning queens, met almost no difficulty in beating Macao 21-15, 21-13 for their title. It was a much easier game for them as they had overcome their biggest obstacle, China, in the semi-final on Wednesday.

The men, by contrast, had a tough first round as their Lao rivals, coached by a Vietnamese, led for most of the round.

However, as the world kings of shuttlecock, Viet Nam proved their power and experience in the later stages coming back from behind to win 24-22.

The second round was much easier; as the Vietnamese players became more familiar with their Lao opponents, going on to win 21-16.

Nguyen Thi Hai Yen became the first Vietnamese wushu’s sanshou (combat) fighter to win a gold medal yesterday.

Yen defeated two rivals from Iran and India in a round-robin format of the women’s 70kg category event on Thursday, but she had to wait until today for the award as the two losers had to finish their game.

Her outstanding performance was a strong motivator for team mate Nguyen Thi Bich who competed in the women’s under-48kg class later.

Bich also met no difficulty in beating Iranian Khadigeh Zeinaldadeh 2-0 to top the podium.

In the last match, Nguyen Thi Sang in the women’s 65kg group failed to pocket another gold. Sang who had lit hopes of becoming a gold medallist after a great victory in the semi-final, was trounced 0-2 by the much stronger Chinese Song Ling.

In other medal news, Vietnamese archers continued failing in both men’s and women’s team events held in Hai Phong City yesterday.

The men’s compound team took only a bronze medal in the third-placed playoff against India. While the women’s lost to India and fell out of the top three.

Today is the last day of the event, which is the biggest ever sporting event organised in Viet Nam.

The host team is expected to raise their number of gold when their pencak silat martial artists compete in the finals.

As the world pencak silat powerhouses, Viet Nam have sent six fighters to the gold medal round and are expected to win at least three.

Before the Games, pencak silat national team consisting entirely of world champions, targeted four golds. They succeeded with one in the seni (performance) by the women’s team.

The muay team also have two finalists in the men’s 51kg and 57kg categories. The young team’s best hopes are with Nguyen Tran Duy Nhat who has won a gold medal from the Pre-AIG tournament and a silver from the first Asian Martial Arts Festival in Bangkok recently.

Meanwhile, the host country also has three representatives in kickboxing finals that will compete today.

Vietnamese Petanque competitors will have at least a silver medal as the women’s doubles team made the semi-finals yesterday. The team includes Asian champion Phan Thi Thuy Diem in the battle with Thailand.

Viet Nam lost at the quarter-final of the men’s snooker team event yesterday.

The team of Do Hoang Quan and Pham Hoai Nam lost to Manan Chandra and Aditya Mehta of India 2-3 at HCM City’s Phan Dinh Phung Gymnasium.

Before, the Vietnamese team beat Iraq’s Al Luhaibi Hussen and Mohsin Ali Abd 3-0 in the second round yesterday. — VNS