Provincial Sports Festival: Is there or is there not a criterion for "athlete selection"?

(Baonghean) - The purpose of the 7th Provincial Sports Festival in 2014 is to "select and supplement athletes for the provincial team to compete in the 7th National Sports Festival in 2014". However, this purpose seems to be set just for fun.

In pole pushing, 60 - 65 kg category, the name Nguyen Thi Thuy (Quynh Luu) is known and respected by many people, because she is the only athlete to win 3 consecutive provincial sports festivals, from 2006 to 2014. She also participated in many national pole pushing competitions and won silver medals but has never participated in the National Sports Festival, although in the 2006 and 2010 Games, this sport was included in the competition program. The reason is very simple: Nghe An delegation did not participate in the Games in this sport, so athletes like her could not participate. Another athlete who also had very good results at the provincial sports festival, Nguyen Van Tung (born in 1980, wrestling) has never participated in the National Sports Festival. Representing Nam Dan district in the last 3 provincial sports festivals, he won gold medals each time, but after each festival ended, Tung quietly returned to his hometown in Nam Anh commune to become a hard-working farmer. Talking to us, Tung said that although wrestling was included in the national sports festivals, he was never called to the provincial wrestling team, because the wrestling team had been training steadily for a whole year before the national sports festival.

Table tennis - a sport at the Provincial Sports Festival does not participate in the National Sports Festival.

Taking place from late February to mid-May, the 7th Provincial Sports Festival in 2014 organized competitions in 16 events including: karate, pole pushing, wrestling, cross-country, football, volleyball, sepak takraw, petanque, athletics, swimming, shuttlecock kicking, badminton, table tennis, chess, crossbow shooting and tug of war. Up to this point, nearly half of the events have been organized for competition. Gold medals have been awarded to those with the highest achievements in each event. However, for the owners of many medals at this congress, the Provincial Sports Festival is their last big playground in 2014. The reason is that since the end of September 2013, when many districts had not yet organized the Sports Festival, the Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism assigned the Provincial Sports Training and Coaching Center to make a plan, which set out goals, targets, competition content, a list of athletes capable of winning medals at the 2014 Sports Festival and a training plan.

This plan does not include any athletes from the Provincial Sports Congress. In fact, the list of key athletes in the sports participating in the National Sports Congress does not include any athletes from the Sports Congresses at all levels. For athletes who are training at the center and have been automatically selected to prepare for the National Sports Congress, the Provincial Sports Congress seems to be just a small playground for them to check their training process. Even in cross-country, professional athletes compete in a separate event besides the athletes competing in the "conference" event and their achievements in this tournament are not counted in the achievements of the Congress. Thus, it is easy to see that there is no connection between the Provincial Sports Congress and participation in the National Sports Congress as required by the Provincial Sports Congress regulations to "select and supplement athletes for the provincial team to compete in the National Sports Congress".

Discussing this concern, Mr. Nguyen Hoang Trung - Director of the center said: "Participating in the Congress are only high-performance athletes who are being trained at the Provincial Sports Training and Coaching Center, as for sports such as table tennis, volleyball, and badminton, because they have not been included in high-performance training and coaching, they cannot be selected and formed teams to participate in the Congress. With the sports participating in the National Sports Festival included in the competition program of the Provincial Sports Festival, because the teams have selected the best athletes from the grassroots, the performance of the athletes is relatively stable, so there is no need to supplement them". Regarding the 3 high-performance sports included in the Provincial Sports Festival but not participating in the National Games, which are swimming, volleyball, and chess, Mr. Trung explained that due to the low ability to compete for medals in these sports, combined with the limited budget of the province for training and participation in the Congress, these sports cannot "go".

Regarding this issue, Mr. Bui Danh Tieu - former Director of the Provincial Sports Competition Center, explained more clearly: “Established in 1985, the National Sports Festival is considered the largest general rehearsal of Vietnamese sports in all aspects. At that time, the general development theory of Vietnamese sports was still understood as the "pyramid model" - through the foundation of the mass sports movement developing widely to build a spearhead peak. However, in recent Congresses, this pyramid model has been... turned upside down - that is, building the peak in the style of "fighting cocks", using peak achievements to have a negative impact on the development of the movement. At the grassroots, provincial and municipal levels, the Congress is only a movement tournament (also attached to local political and cultural tasks), but when it comes to the national level, it is the "private matter" of the teams and professional athletes. Therefore, most of the competitions at the National Sports Festival are actually championships. The national sports festival is labeled as “congress”. Therefore, excellent athletes in sports that have not been trained locally for high performance or in sports that have been trained but are difficult to compete for medals have almost no chance to participate in the National Sports Festival.

When will the excellent athletes who achieved high results at the Provincial Sports Festival have the opportunity to participate in the National Sports Festival? Perhaps, it is time for the provincial sports industry to review the strategy for developing high-performance sports when there is a separation from mass sports as it is now. And also hope that at the Central level, sports managers need to review and rebuild the purpose and nature of the National Sports Festival, so that this is truly the "largest rehearsal of Vietnamese sports" and not just national championships labeled as "conferences".

Minh Quan