Vietnam is targeting gold medals in 21 events at the 25th Southeast Asian Games in Laos.

Swimmer Huu Viet.

The teams strengths and weaknesses have been weighed up before reaching the figure. Traditionally, however, while there are plenty of medals to be won for athletics and swimming these events are not Vietnam’s forte.

In the swimming event, only Nguyen Huu Viet is able to compete for a gold medal in men’s 100m breaststroke. This year he may take another gold medal in the men’s 200m breaststroke as his form is impressive.

If Vietnam’s top swimmers like Viet, Long, Hai and Nguyen maintain their form as they did at the recent Asian Indoor Games in Hanoi, they too can win golds.

In athletics events, there remain only three athletes who are able to snatch gold medals: runner Vu Thi Huong (women’s 100m and 200m), runner Truong Thanh Hang (women’s 800m and 1.500m) and Vu Van Huyen (men’s decathlon).

Elsewhere outstanding athletes who once won gold medals or are expected to win again including Bui Thi Nhung and Nguyen Duy Bang (high jump), runner Nguyen Dinh Cuong (men’s 800m and 1.500m) and Le Thi Phuong (pole-vault).

Therefore, out of 86 sets of medals in the athletics and swimming events, Vietnam can only grab 10 percent of the medals.

Vietnam is expected to take the lead in many other events, especially martial arts, plus there are 21 sets of medals for wrestling and Vietnam hopes to win two thirds of them.

In Wushu, there are also 21 sets of medals. The Vietnam Olympic Committee’s vice chairman Hoang Vinh Giang confirmed that Vietnam is surely to take the first place in these event.

Vietnam also has high hopes of winning many of the 19 sets of medals in pencak silat, 19 sets of medals in karate and 18 sets of medals in judo.

Taekwondo used to be Vietnam’s forte but in the previous SEA Games, Vietnam only took 3 gold medals. There are 21 sets of medals for taekwondo at the current SEA Games.

For shooting, the third most sets of medals at SEA Games (34 sets), Vietnam hopes to win at least 8 gold medals, as many as the number it took at the previous games.

In early November 2009, Vietnam target shooters snatched 28 gold medals, ranking first at the Southeast Asia Shooting Championship.

Other events where Vietnam are able to win medals are diving with 16 sets of medals, shuttle cock with seven sets of medals and weightlifting with 15 sets of medals.

Vietnam also has an opportunity to win gold medals in other sports, including boxing (16 sets of medals), muay thai (14 sets of medals). Vietnam had gold medals for these events at the Asian Championships, not at any SEA Games.

Vietnam won gold medals in sepak takraw, petanque, volleyball, football at the Asian Games but it is difficult for the country to defeat Thai rivals at the SEA Games.

There are four sports where the opportunity to win gold medals remains very small for Vietnam: badminton, golf, table tennis and tennis.

With the current level of the Vietnamese golfers, it will take a long time to be able to win medals in this event.

In badminton, Nguyen Tien Minh is among the world’s top 10 players but it is very difficult for the Vietnamese badminton star to win over his higher ranking rivals from Malaysian and Indonesia.

In table tennis, since Singapore granted the Singaporean citizenship to series of top players from China, wining a bronze is Vietnam’s best hope.

VietNamNet/Nhan Dan