Need to pay attention to the treatment of athletes

(Baonghean) - As one of the basic sports of the Olympics, considered the "queen" sport and also having had top national athletes, but recently, the achievements of Nghe An athletics are showing signs of decline due to difficulties in treatment and athlete selection?

When it comes to Nghe An athletics, experts immediately think of Tran Thi Soa - the first and only athlete under the management of the sports industry to participate in the Olympics. In the late 1970s, Tran Thi Soa won consecutive national championships and became the "Queen of Athletics" of Vietnam at that time. She was twice in the top 10 list of outstanding athletes in 1978 and 1979, representing Vietnam at the World Youth and Student Athletics Championships held in Cuba in 1979 and the pinnacle was representing Vietnam at the Moscow Olympics (former Soviet Union) in 1980. After Tran Thi Soa, from 2000 to 2010, Nghe An athletics had athletes at the national level such as Nguyen Thanh Hai (short distance running), Ngo Dang Quang (shot put), Ngo Xuan Dung (walking) ...

Nghe An athletics athletes practice

However, in the past 3 years, the performance of Nghe An athletics has tended to decline. In recent years, the number of Nghe An athletics team has been from 34 to 37 athletes, including about 20 young athletes, divided into 4 specialized groups: female short-distance runners, male short-distance runners, middle-distance runners and walkers. In recent years, Nghe An athletics athletes have only won gold medals at national youth tournaments (Youth Championships and Youth Championships) and continuously from 2009 to present, there have been athletes winning gold and silver medals at the Southeast Asian Student Championships (in 2013, they won 3 gold medals, 3 silver medals, 6 bronze medals when this tournament was held in Hanoi).

However, when participating in the National Athletics Championship - the biggest tournament of the year, Nghe An athletes did not compete successfully. For example, in the 2013 National Championship, Nghe An athletes only won 1 silver medal and 1 bronze medal. Since 2009, Nghe An athletics has not contributed any faces to the national team to participate in major tournaments such as ASIAD, SEA Games or international athletics tournaments... Even the achievements of the youth athletics team have tended to decline. In 2013, Nghe An athletes only won 1 gold medal at the Youth Championship, 2 gold medals at the Championship of all ages, while in 2012 they won 2 gold medals at the Youth Championship, 5 gold medals at the Championship of all ages.

Explaining the declining performance of Nghe An athletics in recent years, Mr. Nguyen Van Bang - Head of the Athletics Department of the Provincial Training and Sports Center said that the primary reason is still the treatment regime. Compared to martial arts or football, athletics athletes have much more difficulty finding jobs after retirement, while the sports industry has not really paid attention to this issue. As in the case of the former "athletics queen" Tran Thi Soa, although she was famous in both domestic and international arenas with many titles, after retiring, she was no longer looked at by sports managers and had to settle for a job as a grass cutter and parking attendant at Vinh Stadium.

Besides, athletics is a sport that consumes a lot of physical strength during training, but currently the support system for athletes is still low compared to other sports centers in the country. Also because of the low support system, in 2010, Nghe An athletics lost a talent when athlete Ngo Xuan Dung, who broke the national record for 3 consecutive years (from 2007 - 2009) in the 20km walk, suddenly retired to find another job. According to coach Bang, looking at the cases of seniors like Tran Thi Soa and Ngo Xuan Dung, perhaps very few Nghe An athletes dare to devote all their passion and energy to pursuing a sports career.

Coach Nguyen Thanh Hai - who holds the national record in the 200m race with a time of 21.67 seconds at the 2002 National Sports Festival confided: "I am lucky enough to attend university and then become a team coach, but many athletes of the same age as me are currently facing many difficulties in life because they cannot find suitable jobs. Also because the treatment for athletes is still low, in the process of selecting young athletes, although I met many talented athletes in short and medium distances, I could not convince their families to let them become professional athletes."

In 2014, along with the youth tournaments and the Southeast Asian Open Tournament, Nghe An athletics had an important playground, the 7th National Sports Festival held in Nam Dinh. Currently, Nghe An athletics owns a number of talented young faces, typically the walker Luong Thi Nhat. This 18-year-old girl from Que Phong district is one of the outstanding young athletes who brought many achievements to the Nghe An youth athletics team when she won the gold medal in the 3,000m walk event for 3 consecutive years at the National Championship for youth age groups 3 from 2011 - 2013, the gold medal at the National Youth Championship in 2013. Called to the national team to compete in the Southeast Asian student sports tournament in 2012 and 2013, Nhat also brought home 2 gold medals and 2 silver medals for the Vietnamese sports delegation in the middle-distance walk event. In addition to Luong Thi Nhat, Mai Sy Viet (400m hurdles), Hoang Thi Hien (400m relay), are also promising athletes as they are all very young (17-19 years old) and in 2013 they all won gold medals at national youth competitions and Southeast Asian student sports competitions.

However, in order for young athletes to devote themselves to the province's sports and develop their abilities to the best of their abilities, the sports sector needs to pay more attention to the treatment of athletes, including financial support for training, training, health improvement, and reward. In addition, the Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism needs to coordinate with the Department of Education and Training to recruit former track and field athletes to do physical education work for students, helping track and field athletes stabilize their lives, devote themselves to the province's sports and become top athletes at the national level as before.

Minh Quan