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Vietnam to focus investment in 5 Olympic sports

Xinhua, June 17, 2015 Adjust font size:

Vietnam will center investment on some 50 athletes in the five sports of track and field, gymnastics, shooting, swimming and weightlifting, local newspaper Tien Phong (Pioneer) on Wednesday quoted a sports official as saying.

Vietnam has prominent athletes in the five sports who are hoped to win medals at Olympic Games, said Tran Duc Phan, deputy general director of the country' s General Department of Sports and Physical Training.

Vietnam will not focus investment on taekwondo athletes like it has done, Phan said, explaining that it is hard for them to gain medals at Olympic Games. "At Olympic London 2012, even South Korea, the birthplace of taekwondo, did not grab taekwondo medals," he said.

Vietnam made its Olympic debut at the 1980 Moscow Games, but the country had to wait 20 years for its first Olympic medal, a silver won by taekwondo athlete Tran Hieu Ngan in the women's 57-kg weight category.

At the 28th Southeast Asia (SEA) Games which concluded on Tuesday in Singapore, Vietnam finished third (after Thailand and Singapore), bagging home 73 golds, 53 silvers and 60 bronzes. Endi