Vietnam Sports Delegation to SEA Games 27 with 519 athletes

On the afternoon of November 4, the list of Vietnamese sports delegation attending the 27th SEA Games was officially approved by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism.

Accordingly, the Vietnamese sports delegation attending this SEA Games has a total of 750 members, including 519 athletes led by Mr. Lam Quang Thanh - Deputy Director General of the General Department of Sports and Physical Training as Head of the delegation. In addition, the Vietnamese sports delegation also has 8 deputy heads of delegations and 7 officers on duty in Myanmar this coming December.

Compared to the 2011 SEA Games (857 members, including 601 athletes from 42 teams), this year the number of members of the Vietnamese sports delegation is less. The reason is that the host country only included 33 official sports, not to mention cutting a series of events that are not its strengths.

The Vietnamese Sports Delegation will participate in the 27th SEA Games with the goal of winning 70 gold medals.

Therefore, the Vietnamese sports delegation will only participate in 316 events of 30/33 sports, setting a modest target of striving to win over 70 gold medals and be in one of the top 3 positions in the final rankings.

According to Head of Delegation Lam Quang Thanh, this is an acceptable target for the Vietnamese delegation, but it is extremely difficult to strive for a top 2 finish. According to Mr. Thanh's prediction, the host country Myanmar will almost certainly be in first place, and the second place will probably be Thailand.

In the new list finalized by the General Department of Sports and Physical Training, athletics is the sport with the largest number of members: 58 people (43 athletes). At this year's SEA Games, despite having many strong events cut, athletics is still one of the sports with a high target of winning gold medals, about 10-12 gold medals to defend the top position of the entire delegation. At this SEA Games, athletics is also the sport with the largest number of medal sets (46 sets). The following sports also have a large number of medal sets such as aquatics (41), wushu (23), taekwondo (21), wrestling (21), chess (18), kempo (18), vovinam (18), sepak takraw (18), judo (18). Among these sports, Vietnam has sports with a large number of athletes such as: cycling (29), karate, petanque (28), sepak takraw (25) ...

Although the list of members has been finalized at 750 people, until this afternoon, there are still 4 sports that do not have specific lists of athletes: men's and women's football, taekwondo and table tennis. While men's and women's football (25 members) will finalize the list near the SEA Games, taekwondo (24 members) has just finished the world championship and will finalize the list in the next few days. As for table tennis, this afternoon the General Department of Sports and Physical Training and the Federation, the table tennis department had a meeting to finalize the list of participating athletes. Mr. Thanh said that the specific list of table tennis will be announced tomorrow morning (November 5), with a specific number of 11 members.

The first group of the Vietnamese delegation is expected to depart on December 4 by Vietnam Airlines. After that, two more groups will travel to Myanmar by direct flights.

On November 20, the Vietnamese sports delegation will hold a ceremony to send off their troops to the 27th SEA Games at the National Sports Training Center in Hanoi. Before that, on November 6, after the countries finalize the list of registered players to compete with the host country, the 27th SEA Games Organizing Committee will conduct a draw and schedule the competitions in the football group including football (including futsal), table tennis, volleyball, etc. Men's football will be the earliest competition, starting from December 1.

The 27th SEA Games will have a total of 460 sets of medals in 33 sports including: Aquatics (Swimming, Diving, Water Polo...), archery, athletics, cycling (BMX, cross-country, downhill and road), horse racing, football, men's and women's futsal, badminton, basketball, billiards-snooker, bodybuilding, boxing, canoeing, chess (chess and traditional Asian chess), golf, judo, karate, muay, pencak silat, rowing, sailing, sepak takraw, chinlone, wushu, vovinam, weightlifting, wrestling, shooting, table tennis, taekwondo, tennis, traditional boat racing, volleyball.

The 27th SEA Games will officially take place from December 11-22 at four locations in Myanmar, including the capital Nay Pyi Taw, Yangon, Mandalay and Ngwe Saung beach./.

According to VOV