Socialist Republic of Vietnam

The 4000-year history filled with eternal wars of founding and defending the country had tempered a martial Vietnamese nation. This martial tradition was evidently manifested in sporting events found in the collective activities of the Viet people from the very old time.

In the cultural aspect, the Red River delta's traditional rituals is well-known with the quan ho songs and the cheomelodies; and in the eyes of sportsmen, it proceeded excitingly with contests of wrestling, wushu, swinging and playing Chinese chess. The annual races of canoeing, swimming and diving are always fierce competitions among young men from coastal and riverside regions. Up in the mountainous areas, horse races, elephant races, contests of arrow and cross-bow shooting and other sporting games like throwing con ball have been perpetuated until today.

Under the French domination and the South Vietnam regimes, Vietnamese national sportsmen, though being scattered in operation, attended many international competitions in the region and finished as champion or among the top standings many times in such categories as soccer, boxing, cycling, tennis...

Since 1975, the Vietnamese sports and physical culture have been truly promoted to become a widespread movement among people with the slogan "To be strong to construct and defend the country". The French and American war posed big obstacles to the development of the Vietnamese sports; nonetheless, at every interval during these two wars, Vietnam had been hectic to construct the preliminary infrastructure for sports. Stadiums and training centers had been built, and more importantly, the first training officers and managing officers of the sports branch had undergone basic training inside the country and abroad.

A Sport Festival

Since the country's unification in 1976 and especially the introduction of the renovation process in 1986, positive social and economic changes have pushed the sports branch to thrive.

The sports movement at grassroots levels has increasingly attracted mass participation; millions of people of all ages have been regularly practicing sports and physical exercises. Streets of Vietnam in the early morning often impress foreigners by groups of people exercising thai cuc quyen (taijiquan, a kind of traditional Chinese shadow boxing), deep-breathing training, playing badminton and mini-soccer. Widespread aerobic and nourishing exercise clubs have attracted middle-aged and old people, while courses of Judo, Karate, and Taekwondo have been a passion of the youth. Sporting events take place all year round across the country with major competitions of each category and sports games at local and national levels.

Soccer is the most popular game in Vietnam. Those who concern about soccer include not only soccer players at all levels but also the mass of soccer fans in which many of them have not even kicked a ball.

However, the high ranking awards of the Vietnam sports were not given to soccer, but chess playing, kungfu and shooting. Many Vietnamese chess players have been conferred with Prominent Player and Great Prominent Player Honors by the International Chess Federation, namely, Hoang Thanh Trang, Dao Thien Hai, Nguyen Thi Tuong Van... Regarding kungfu, Wushu player Nguyen Thuy Hien, gold medalist at the 1996 Asian Wushu Championships, is the most prominent sporting personality of Vietnam. Male and female players of Taekwondo, Judo and Karate are usually a spearhead of Vietnamese sports in regional competitions. Another Vietnamese outstanding sporting personality is body-building playerLy Duc, the gold medalist at the 90 kg category at the Asian Body-building Championships held in Rangoon, Myanmar.

Recently, national records in athletics and swimming have been continuously broken. This is truly a good news showing that Vietnam is trying to fill the gap with international and regional standard in these sports.

'Khi Cong' Exercise

In the integration process to the world community, some sports that were previously unpopular with the Vietnamese are now in booming development. Among those, tennis, horse race and golf are listed. Before 1975, there were quite a few tennis courts in the country's major cities like Ha Noi and Sai Gon; today, each city boasts hundreds of tennis courts. Remote provinces like Lang Son, Quangr Ninh, Dong Thap have built their tennis courses, while players from small provinces, such as Soc trang or Khanh Hoa, are fairly strong in the national tennis championships. Visitors can watch horse races at Phu Tho race field, Ho Chi Minh City thanks to the restoration of the arena with complicated service required for this sport. You can also play golf in Vietnam since nearly a dozen of golf courses have been built or under construction. The Da Lat Golf Course has been received A+ rank by the International Golf Association and the Vietnam Open Golf Championship has been officially put in the annual list of international competitions.

Although Vietnamese national players have recorded more and more achievements at international and regional events like the Seagames, Asiad, or Olympic Games, the Vietnamese level of sports generally still lags far behind other countries in the region. The immediate difficulties have been identified: poor infrastructure and technical conditions for sporting activities and training work; lack of managing officers and trainers and the weakness of training quality; poorer physical conditions and limited tactics of Vietnamese players, though having great determination, in international competitions.