Athletics

HÀ NỘI — Lê Tú Chinh continued to shine in the short-distance events at the National Athletics Championships at the Thống Nhất Stadium in HCM City yesterday.

Chinh of the host, alongside her teammates Lê Thị Mộng Tuyền, Lưu Kim Phụng and Hà Thị Thu, won a gold medal and set a new national record in the women’s 4x200m relay category.

Their time of 1:34.95 broke the old record of 1:36.25 set by Hà Nội crew in 2013.

Earlier, Chinh won gold in the women’s 100m category with a time of 11.55sec. Her time was faster than her performance in the Southeast Asian (SEA) Games in Singapore in August, where she also won gold with a time of 11.56sec.

Chinh will next compete in the 200m and 4x100m events.

Her teammate Phan Thanh Bình also performed well at the tournament. He seized a gold in the men’s discus event with 45.35m.

Hà Nội jumped to the top ranking after the second day of competition.

The athletes from the capital city pocketed two more gold medals to make it four total, in addition to five silvers and one bronze.

Hosts HCM City stood in second with three golds, four silvers and five bronzes. The Military was third with the same number of golds and silvers but only two bronzes.

Yesterday, Trần Thị Lan triumphed in the women’s pole vault event with a result of 3.60m.

She was followed by Trương Thị Thu of Thanh Hóa and Nguyễn Phạm Hoài Yên of Đà Nẵng.

Hà Nội’s second gold went to the women’s 4x400m team who ran 3:42.69.

Their win was unexpected as they were considered weaker than the Nam Định team, which included SEA Games winner Nguyễn Thị Huyền.

Huyền, who is the only ASEAN athlete in world top 50, tried her best but failed to lift her team to the top podium. They finished second in 3:52.09.

Huyền, who missed one of her targeted titles, will take part in the 400m event today.

The men’s 4x400m title went to Thanh Hóa. Hà Nội took silver while HCM City claimed bronze.

In the 100m hurdle events, Trần Thị Yến Hoa of Thừa Thiên-Huế, who won at the Malaysian SEA Games in August, met no difficulty in pocketing the women’s title with a time of 13.94sec. Nguyễn Công Lợi of the Military championed the men’s category. He ran 14.86sec.

SEA Games winner Vũ Thị Ly of Ninh Bình and Dương Văn Thái from Nam Định won the women’s and men’s 800m events, respectively.

Ly, who won her Games crown in her third participation, crossed the finish line first, clocking 2:09.55. Thái, the two-time winner at the regional tournament, left his rivals far behind in the track. He won with a time of 1:51.03.

Other medals of the day went to Nguyễn Hoài Văn in men’s javelin, Nguyễn Thị Oanh in the women’s 5,000m, Nguyễn Tiến Trọng in the men’s long jump, Phạm Tiến Sản in the men’s 3,000m steeplechase, and the Police team in the men’s 4x400m. — VNS