A German training expert and officials from the Vietnam Athletics Federation (VAF) are blaming each other over the serious injury of Vu Thi Huong, Vietnam’s elite sprinter, at her training course in Germany.

The injury will keep her from competing in July’s Asian Athletics Championship in Japan and September’s World Athletics Championship in South Korea.

Vietnamese sports authorities are also concerned they will not make profit off of the US$44,000 they invested.

Early this year, the VAF agreed on a plan set up by former German decathlete and training expert Uwe Freimuth to send Huong and another athlete to train in Germany for five months before taking part in the two regional and world tournaments.

However, the federation wouldn’t allow Freimuth to accompany the athletes during their training, arguing that their coach Nguyen Dinh Minh could look after them.

After the recurrence of Huong’s old muscle injury, the VAF is blaming Freimuth.

“We were too confident in the Germany expert,” said Nguyen Hong Minh, chief of Vietnam’s elite sports department. “Reading her training schedule in Germany, I thought of possible injury and guessed she may be hurt during training for the Asian championship.”

Freimuth, who came to Vietnam in 2009 under an agreement between the German Olympic Association and Vietnamese sports authorities to prepare athletes for the 2012 Olympics, said the VAF and the sports committee must take full responsibility.

“I built the training plan in Germany for Huong, but the VAF wouldn’t permit me to accompany her during training,” he said.

He reported to the German Athletics Federation every four months about his work and the status of Vietnam’s track-and-field athletes.

Earlier, the VAF and Freimuth could not come to an agreement about athletes’ training and competition regimens for the training abroad.

Freimuth wanted to send the athletes to train in the Himalayan nation of Bhutan at an altitude of 2,300 meters to 3,200 meters above sea level, while other sports leaders were not too keen on it.

Source: Tuoi Tre