HÀ NỘI — Việt Nam pocketed five gold, one silver and five bronze medals at the first day of the Thailand Open Track and Field Championship yesterday in Bangkok.

Lê Tú Chinh won the first gold medal in the women’s 100m event with a time of 11.47sec, setting up her personal best.

Her time was much better than that of Kayla Richardson of the Philippines (11.76sec) who won a gold medal at last Southeast Asian Games two years ago in Singapore.

Chinh will continue with the 200m and 4x100m relay events in the next days.

Chinh won a national title and a gold medal at the Asian Youth Athletics Championships two months ago.

Later, Dương Văn Thái championed in the men’s 1,500m event with a time of 3min 55.66sec. His teammate Đỗ Quốc Luật was at third with 3:57.73.

Vũ Thị Ly triumphed in the women’s 1,500m, timing 4:40.93.

Vietnamese athletes dominated the men’s and women’s 10,000m categories with two golds and two bronzes.

Phạm Thị Huệ took the fourth gold for Việt Nam in the women’s class with a time of 35:30.27. Phạm Thị Hồng Lê added a bronze on 37:23.98.

SEA Games defending champion Nguyễn Văn Lai claimed the title, taking 31:25.05. Lê Văn Thao was third with 32:03.17.

The only silver went to Nguyễn Thị Trúc Mai in the women’s long jump event. Meanwhile, Nguyễn Tuấn Anh was third in the men’s long jump.

Bùi Thị Xuân secured a bronze in the women’s javelin event with a throw of 49.53m.

The Open tournament kicked off yesterday and will last until Thursday. Nearly all ASEAN countries send their athletes here as it is a warm-up for the SEA Games in August in Malaysia. — VNS