VietNamNet Bridge – Vietnamese female weightlifter Nguyen Thi Kim Luc Van became the first to win an Asian gold medal for the country after her Kazakhstan rival lost the gold medal for using dope.

The Asian Weightlifting Championships took place in Astana, Kazakhstan from December 21 to 26. At this event, Vietnam did not win any gold medal but everything changed after the doping test.

According to the General Department of Sports and Physical Training - Mr. Do Dinh Khang – who is in charge of Vietnam’s weightlifting, the organizers discovered nearly 30 athletes of using banned substances. The records of these athletes were annulled and they will be banned from competitions in the coming time.

In the women's 75kg category, Vietnam’s Kim Van moved from the second position in both the snatch and total contents after Alexandra Aborneva (Kazakhstan), who won all three gold medals in the women’s 75kg category, was detected to use dope.

Thus, Van won two gold medals. In addition, she moved from the fourth to the third place for the clean and jerk and won the bronze medal. Van’s achievements in the women’s 75kg class were 106kg for snatch, 136kg for clean and jerk and 242kg for totals.

Khang said that in the past, Vietnam’s best record for the women’s weightlifting was a silver medal. For the men’s weightlifting, Hoan Anh Tuan was the Asian champion for six times. Tuan was the only male weightlifter to win Asian gold medals for Vietnam.

Van lost the chance to compete at the 27th SEA Games as the host country Myanmar did not organize the competitions for the two highest weight categories for female lifters.

Khang said Van would receive total bonuses of VND145 million ($12,000) for the three Asian medals.

Earlier, male lifters Tan Tai and Van Hoa received VND25 million ($1,200) for their silver medals at the 27th SEA Games.

Nguyen Tu