HÀ NỘI — Nguyễn Thị Ánh Viên successfully won a gold medal and set a new record at the Asian Swimming Championships in Tokyo yesterday.

Viên of Việt Nam was the fastest athlete after the qualification, with a time of 4min 45.95sec. She placed in the fourth lane for the top title candidate in the final and finished the women’s 400m individual medley with a time of 4:37.71 to take her title. Her result is a new record for the tournament, beating the former record of 4:41.29 set by Chinese Liu Jing in 2002.

Japanese Shimizu Sakiko and Ohashi Yui finished second and third, respectively.

Viên’s teammate, Vũ Thị Phương Anh, (5:11.04) came in eighth in the same category.

The 400m IM is Viên’s strong sport. She swam 4: 36.85 to finish in ninth place at August’s Rio Olympics.

Viên’s personal best was 4:13.72 for a gold medal at the Southeast Asian Games in Singapore last year.

In the men’s 400m IM, Vietnamese Trần Duy Khôi also earned a berth in the final round, but he could only take sixth place, with a time of 4:26.40, which was better than his qualification result of 4:31.73.

Khôi was not a high-ranked swimmer at this tournament. A berth in the final was a big step forward for the Vietnamese, who won one silver and two bronze medals at the Singapore Games.

Setto Daiya of the hosts took a gold medal, and also set a new Asian record with a time of 4: 10.17, nearly 6 seconds faster than the former one.

In the men’s 50m breast stroke, Lê Nguyễn Paul of Việt Nam finished No 13. His teammate Lâm Quang Nhật ranked 15th in the men’s 200m freestyle.

Earlier, Trần Ngọc Thi finished 10th in the women’s 200m butterfly.

The Asian championship are taking place from November 17-20. — VNS