LookAtVietnam – Sprinter Vu Thi Huong won a gold medal and set a new record for Viet Nam at the Asian Indoor Games in Ha Noi.

Pulse-pounding: Vietnamese national and SEA Games defending champion Vu Thi Huong (left) pockets an unexpected gold medal for Viet Nam in the women’s 60m race and sets the first record of the third Asian Indoor Games with her time of 7.24sec.

She outclassed Guzel Khubbieva of Uzbekistan and Nongnuc Sanrat of Thailand, who came in second and third place.

“It’s so great. I’m very happy to win my first gold in the Asian Indoor Games. The gold is a result of my two years of hard training sessions with coach Nguyen Dinh Minh,” Huong said after the race.

“I’m surprised by the gold won by Huong. She pocketed not only a gold, but also set a record on the first competition day,” said Viet Nam National Olympic Committee’s vice chairman and general secretary Hoang Vinh Giang.

“Huong brings great momentum to Viet Nam’s athletics at the games. She had a slower start, but she finished one meter faster in the end,” said head of athletics section of National Sports Administration, Duong Duc Thuy.

The chess team, which is comprised of International Masters Nguyen Ngoc Truong Son, Le Quang Liem, Pham Le Thao Nguyen and Hoang Thi Bao Tram, won the gold in the blitz event yesterday, November 1.

Nguyen Nhat Tu pocketed a second gold medal in fin swimming for Viet Nam yesterday, after finishing first in the men’s 100m race with a time of 44.59sec.

Tu made a great start to take the lead of the race and left his rivals, Artyom Klimovich of Kazakhstan and Yuta Hasegawa from Japan, in his wake.

The first one went to Nguyen Trung Kien who also triumphed in the men’s 100m surface event with a time of 37.01secs, while his team-mate Phan Luu Cam Thanh came in second.

Kien surpassed powerhouses Jingwei Miao of China and Japanese Hideaki Sakai in the event at Ha Noi’s Aquatic Sports Centre.

Klimovich took second with a time of 45.85, while Hasegawa finished third at 46.24.

Later, the e-sport team of Viet Nam had chance to hoist the national flag after their remarkable performance in the Dota Allstars event, after beating Mongolia and Uzbekistan in a round robin competition to take the gold.

Asian Games 2006 silver medal winner Duong Anh Vu booked a berth in the finals of the billiards and snooker event yesterday at HCM City’s Phan Dinh Phung Gymnasium.

The national top player outclassed South Korean Kim Kyung-roul 40-28 in the semi-final match. He is expected to bring Viet Nam one more gold medal today when he will challenge Cho Jae-ho of South Korea.

Cho defeated the Japanese world No 7 and 2007 defending world champion Ryuji Umeda 40-36.

Earlier yesterday, Vu edged out Laos’s Van Hieu Tan 40-39 in the quarter-finals.

Vu is now the host nation’s only medal hope in the three-cushion carom singles event, after title favourite, Ly The Vinh, lost to Umeda in another quarter-final match.

World No 16 Vinh, who cruised past Laos’s Xay Sana Somchai in the first match on Saturday, caused a great deal of difficulty for the 2006 Asian Games champion, but he eventually lost 33-40.

Meanwhile in the futsal events, Viet Nam suffered disappointment when both the women and men’s futsal (indoor football) teams were knocked out after losing to Jordan in the last round of the group stage.

The women were beat 2-3 at Tan Binh Gymnasium, while men lost in Phu Tho Gymnasium yesterday. Both teams were eliminated from competition.

Japan, Iran, Thailand and Jordan advanced to the semi-final of the women’s competition. Iran, Turkmenistan, Jordan, Malaysia, Uzbekistan and Kuwait qualified for the quarter-finals in the men’s event.

Viet Nam have bagged 11 gold, four silver and five bronze medals after two competition days and rank at second.

China proved their power with the top position winning 11 golds, six silvers and four bronzes.

VietNamNet/Viet Nam News