"Anh Vien is a wonderful phenomenon of swimming"

Former head of the Vietnamese sports delegation Nguyen Hong Minh assessed that the 17-year-old swimmer winning 2 gold medals and breaking a SEA Games record on the first day was a miracle, and could be considered a milestone that created a breakthrough for not only swimming. The content is as follows:

The Nguyen Thi Anh Vien event was assessed by expert Nguyen Hong Minh as a turning point for swimming and Vietnamese sports.

Vien won without any surprise, exactly as planned, and even without showing his full potential. For the first time, Vietnamese swimming reached the level of winning Gold but was still not satisfied because the performance parameters were not as expected.

Since Vietnam re-integrated into the regional arena in 1989, winning a swimming medal has always been a challenge for Vietnamese sports. It was not until the 2001 SEA Games that the first medal was won, then it took two more Games to reach the first gold medal, and before the 27th SEA Games, there were only 5 gold medals, so we can clearly see how brilliant Vien's achievement is.

Importantly, for the first time we have a swimming talent that has reached the continental level, enough to be able to confidently claim victory in his strong events, with a clear gap compared to his opponents. Even in the final of the 200m medley, Vien showed signs of being "in a state", especially in the last 50m when he could not show his full strength but was still ahead of his opponent by nearly a second and a half. In the second final of the 200m backstroke, Vien competed much better, breaking the Games record by nearly a second.

Never in my sports career have I seen such an interesting phenomenon in swimming as this time when both coaches and athletes were not satisfied, and somewhat sad because Vien had won 2 gold medals but had not reached the set parameters. That is Vien's level, marking a new step forward for Vietnamese swimming - a rare achievement that resulted from a process of discovering and training athletes systematically according to international standards. I believe that Vien will excellently complete the target of winning 4-5 gold medals and also break another SEA Games record.

Vien's case has shown that Vietnamese sports can still completely succeed in the goals of reaching the continent and the world in basic sports and the Olympics if we have determination, perseverance combined with the right way of thinking and doing.

Yesterday, another sport that made a special impression on me was wrestling with 4 absolute victories for 4 wrestlers in a row in just 30 minutes of the afternoon. Vietnamese wrestling proved to be too strong compared to the whole of Southeast Asia, so exceeding the target of 6 gold medals by a few is not too terrible. It is commendable that this sport has been carefully prepared in all aspects, especially tactics, to be able to absolutely defeat all opponents, to the point that in reality, even if we want to influence from the outside, it is impossible. According to my prediction, wrestling will continue to win a few more gold medals, but we must be ready to deal with the risk of being oppressed.

According to VnExpress