Sepak takraw team take golds at World Games; Chess masters play in World Championship qualifiers

Viet Nam pocketed one gold and one silver at the World Games’ sepak takraw tournament.

The Vietnamese team of five lost to traditional rival Thailand 0-2 in the team event final on Monday.

Earlier, they took gold in the women’s doubles event when they beat both Chinese Taipei and Japan with the same score of 2-0.

The World Games is a festival for sports not organised in the Olympics. Sepak takraw is considered a demonstration.

Viet Nam will see 12 people take part in billiards and snooker, finsdiving, sport aerobics, karate and wushu at the Games, which run from July 16-26.

Karate will be their first competition sport, beginning tomorrow, July 23.

Chess masters play in World Championship qualifiers

The qualifying round for zone 3.3 at the World Chess Championship will see competition between 87 masters from eight countries including powerhouses Philippines, Mongolia, Japan and Viet Nam.

The event will kick off today, July 22 in HCM City and will welcome Malaysia as a last minute registry.

Viet Nam will send the most competitors to the event, 57, all aiming to grab as many tickets to the finals as possible.

The final competitor’s list revealed that 10 male and five female International Grand masters will participate. Among them, Wesley So from the Philippines is the No 1 seed on the men’s side with the highest Elo rating of 2,646. Zhang Zhong of Singapore is seeded second and Vietnamese Nguyen Ngoc Truong Son ranks third.

Mongolian Munguntuul (Elo 2,412) is the top women’s seed. Nguyen Thi Thanh An and Pham Le Thao Nguyen of Viet Nam are second and third respectively.

VietNamNet/Viet Nam News