As the sport bringing home the first-ever medal for Vietnam at the world’s largest sporting event (a silver by Tran Hieu Ngan at the 2000 Sydney Olympics), over the past 16 years, Vietnam’s taekwondo has never stopped seeking new successes at the Olympic arena, with the immediate goal of securing official places at the 2016 Olympics Games, to be held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

Truong Thi Kim Tuyen is currently one of the brightest faces of Vietnamese taekwondo.

Right after the conclusion of the Lunar New Year holiday, members of the Vietnam taekwondo team got down to working on the target of booking one or two tickets to Rio this summer.

In preparation for the Olympic Asia zone qualification round, the men’s team, with 12 fighters, gathered for training in Ho Chi Minh City, while the 12-member women’s team practiced in the central coastal city of Da Nang.

Vietnamese taekwondo artists are scheduled to participate in a 45-day training course in the Republic of Korea this month, which is expected to provide them the necessary preparation before starting their campaign at the Olympic Asian zone qualification tournament and the Asian Championships, set to take place next month in the Philippines.

This will be the last opportunity for Vietnam’s taekwondo team to secure berths at the 2016 Olympics. Earlier in late February, the team took part in the 2016 Fujairah Open International Taekwondo Championship in the United Arab Emirates, where Nguyen Van Duy took the solitary bronze medal for Vietnam in the men’s 58kg category.

According to Vu Xuan Thanh, Vice President and General Secretary of the Vietnam Taekwondo Federation, the Olympic Asian zone qualifying round and the Asian Championships, both to be hosted in the Philippines, will be the only chance for Vietnamese fighters to book their places in Rio.

As regulated by the World Taekwondo Federation, each country is only allowed to compete in two men’s weight classes and two women’s categories at the Olympic Asian zone qualification tournament, with the top two performers from each category (instead of three as for the London Olympics four years ago) to be qualified for the Summer Olympic Games in Brazil.

The Olympic ticket-hunting journey will become even more challenging for Vietnamese artists as key athletes of other countries will possibly skip the Asian Championships to focus their energy on the Olympic qualification tournament if the continental competition takes place first.

With the new regulations, the national team’s coaching staff is pinning hopes for Olympic slots on spearhead fighters Truong Thi Kim Tuyen, Pham Thi Thu Hien, Ha Thi Nguyen, Nguyen Van Duy and Phan Trung Duc. An additional three to four athletes have also been summoned in each weight category as substitutes for the key artists.

When asked about her opponents at the upcoming Olympic qualifying round, Truong Thi Kim Tuyen admitted that she and her teammates would have to take on many strong fighters from taekwondo powerhouses across the continent such as Chinese Taipei, the Republic of Korea and the Philippines.

However, Tuyen also pledged to train and compete to the best of her ability to achieve the best result as well as the tickets to play in the 2016 Rio Olympic Games.

In 2012, Vietnam had two Olympians in taekwondo: Le Huynh Chau and Chu Hoang Dieu Linh.

Vietnam has booked a total of six places at the 2016 Rio Olympics so far with one by Nguyen Thi Anh Vien in swimming, two by Hoang Xuan Vinh and Tran Quoc Cuong in shooting and three by the men’s team in weightlifting.

Nhan Dan