Vietnam won 15 medals, including four golds, at the South East Asian Games in Vientiane on Thursday, putting the country in third place on the gold tally behind Singapore and Thailand.

Trong Cuong beat the Cambodian rival So Naro in the men’s 87kg finals while Minh Dat defeated Marlon Avenido from the Philippines in the men’s 73kg category.

It was the third consecutive gold medal for Cuong at the SEA Games competition after he took the gold at the 23^rd and 24^th SEA Games in 2005 and 2007.

In the karatedo event, Hoang Ngan beat Singaporean Ng Pei Yi 5-0 in the finals of the women’s singles kata competition.

After that, Ngan joined Nguyen Thi Hang and Thu Ha to take a 5-0 win over Malaysia in the women’s team kata contest.

Earlier Ngan, Hang and Ha beat rivals from Indonesia 4-1 and Thailand 5-0 to play the finals.

But a big disappointment for Vietnam was in the weightlifting event. 2008 Olympic silver winner Hoang Anh Tuan left the men’s 56kg category without a medal after an overly confident performance.

In the snatch, Tuan lifted 125kg while Jadi Seteadi of Indonesia successfully took up 126kg.

In the clean and jerk, Seteadi opened successfully at 148kg but Tuan began with 152kg of weight that he couldn’t lift.

But as Seteadi’s 152kg attempt was also unsuccessful, Tuan was left knowing that he could have won simply by lifting 150kg.

With six gold medals, including two golds earned on opening day Wednesday, Vietnam is in third place behind top-placed Singapore with 11 gold medals and second-placed Thailand with seven golds. Vietnam also won four silver and seven bronze medals on Thursday.

Source: Thanh Nien, SGGP