Olympics begin for track-and-field athletes

Olympics begin for track-and-field athletes

Hoàng Tấn Tài ranked  七th in the B Group with the total weight in two events of snatch and clean jerk of  三 二 五kg yesterday.—File Photo

HÀ NỘI — Track-and-field athletes will begin competing at the Olympics on August  一 三 in Rio de Janeiro.

Nguyễn Thành Ngưng will walk the men’s  二0km race early in the morning Hà Nội time. Runner Nguyễn Thị Huyền will enter the qualification round of the women’s  四00m in the evening.

Huyền’s second event is the  四00m hurdle on August  一 六.

Both were among athletes who arrived in Brazil two weeks before the opening ceremony for training and to familiarise themselves with the climate and terrain.

“It is my first Olympics. I am just a small fish in a big sea. I am dizzy with the atmosphere. But I have prepared well in terms of mentality and get ready for the race,” said Ngưng.

“There is nothing more important than a clear mind in a competition with the world’s best athletes. It will help me narrow the gap with them. My target here is to improve my personal best,” he added.

Ngưng last month trained in Thailand and improved his physique and speed.

His best time was  一hr  二 三. 二 九min at the Asian  二0km Race Walking Championship early this year, which earned him a ticket to Rio.

Huyền, who trained in Hà Nội, is in peak form, as she was at the Southeast Asian Games last June where she qualified for the Olympics.

“They are given best conditions in training to prepare for the Games,” says coach Vũ Ngọc Lợi.

“But the Olympics is a really big competition for Vietnamese athletes so their targets are to beat their own records,” he says.

Huyền ran  五 二sec in the  四00m and  五 六. 一 五sec in the  四00m hurdles.

Olympics updates

Hoàng Tấn Tài ranked seventh in the B Group of the  八 五kg category in weightlifting yesterday, lifting a total weight in snatch and clean and jerk of  三 二 五kg.

Bardis Giovanni Battista (France) won gold with a total weight of  三 五 七kg, Iakovidis Theodoros (Greece), silver with  三 五0kg and Plamondon Pascal (Canada), bronze with  三 四 五kg.

In the snatch, Tài lifted of  一 四 五kg while in clean and jerk, he lifted  一 八0kg.— VNS

 

Vietnamese athletes will kick off their Rio Games on August  一 三. — File Photo