VietNamNet Bridge - With the support from the Republic of Korea, the women’s national taekwondo team of Vietnam will be trained and guided by excellent experts to aim to Olympic medals in 2016.

Vietnamese female Taekwondo artists are evaluated to have great potential but since the Olympic silver medal of Tran Hieu Ngan, Vietnam has yet to have similar performance.

One of the reasons pointed out by experts is the lack of funding for training and lack of good instructors to train young athletes since the age of 14-16.

The funding for Vietnam's sports in general is limited, so the country can only invest in several athletes before major tournaments. The results, thus, is unsatisfactory. For example, only several months before the 2012 Olympics, two Taekwondo athletes - Le Huynh Chau and Chu Hoang Dieu Linh – were sent to RoK, Italy, France and England for training, thanks to funding from RoK’s CJ Group. However, they were eliminated early. The result was blamed on late training.

Learning from failure in the process of preparing for the 2012 Olympics, the Sports and Physical Training Administration, the Vietnam Taekwondo Federation and CJ sat down to discuss solutions and they decided to begin investing in female athletes to prepare for major tournaments such as the Asian Games and the Olympics.

Initially, CJ will assist in the recruitment of talented athletes and provision of good coaches to train the athletes before choosing the best for the 2016 Olympics and the 2019 Asian Games in Vietnam. The entire cost of the six-year training process will be covered by the Korean side.

In addition, female athletes are also offered great reward if they win medals at the 2016 Olympics: $100,000 for a gold medal, $50,000 for a silver medal, and $30,000 for a bronze medal. The female athlete who wins a gold medal at the 2014 and 2019 Asian Games will receive $20,000.

Nguyen Nam