VietNamNet Bridge – Male gymnast Nguyen Ha Thanh scored 15.013 points to win a gold medal in the men’s vault at the Grand Prix Osijek 2013 in Croatia on the closing day, September 15.

Ha Thanh (left) and his teammates.

Before the competition, the chance for Ha Thanh was said to be small because his opponents were big names like Tuuha Tomi (Finland), Marek Lyszczarz (Netherlands) and Andrea Cingolani (Italy). However, with experience and great bravery, Ha Thanh performed very confidently to win the highest results.

In the qualifying rounds, Nguyen Ha Thanh performed very impressively, ranking first among the 23 athletes with 14,700 points. With high confidence, he did not make a single error in his final performance. Thanh was the only gymnast to achieve a 15-benchmark score for his extremely difficult yurchenko double pike.

Pavel Bulauski of Belarus took the silver with a 14.762 while Hoang Cuong, another Vietnamese gymnast, and Tomi Tuuha of Finland tied for third with a 14.550.

Earlier on September 14, female gymnast Phan Thi Ha Thanh took a bronze medal in the women’s vault.

Vietnamese athletes won one gold and two bronze medals at the Grand Prix Osijek 2013. This success will surely help the team be more confident to compete at the world champions in Brussels from September 30.

Vietnamese athletes had trained in Hungary for a month before the tournament took place.

Nguyen Nam