Vietnam won the silver medal in the four-women, two-oar rowing category on Friday morning at the 2010 Asian Games in Guangzhou, China.

The women’s team (Dang Thi Tham, Dang Thi Hanh, Nguyen Thi Huu and Tran Thi Sam) came in second behind China. Iran came in third to take the bronze.

Earlier on Thursday, Pham Thi Thao and Pham Thi Hue city won the silver medal in the two-women rowing category where China, again, grabbed the gold.

On Friday afternoon, Nguyen Thanh Bao earned the silver medal in the men’s singles Chinese chess competition after losing to a Hong Kong rival.

The women’s Vietnamese Sepak Takraw team failed to defend the gold medal it won at the 15th Asian Games in Doha, Qatar in 2006.

They beat Japan in their opener only to lose to Indonesia before being defeated 0-2 by Thailand in the semi-finals.

Vietnamese women and their Indonesian counterparts took the bronze medals while Thailand and China will fight for the gold medal in a future elimination round.

On Friday evening, Vietnam’s male badminton ace Nguyen Tien Minh, (ranked number 9, worldwide) lost 9-21, 16-21 to Chinese rival Lin Dan (ranked fourth in the world) who won the gold medal at the 2008 Olympics.

So far, Vietnamese athletes have won a total 11 silver and 11 bronze medals and have been ranked 20th in terms of medals earned.

It looks as though it will be very hard for the Vietnamese contestants to reach their goal of winning 4-6 gold medals to come out among the top 15 of the 45 countries and territories at the 16th Asian Games this year.