Vietnam track stars run away with golds at SEA Games

CLARK, Philippines: Vietnam’s track athletes pulled off a stunning display at the Southeast Asian Games in the Philippines on Sunday evening, bagging five out of the six individual golds on offer.

The hosts of the next SEA Games in 2021 shot up the medal table to 65 golds, level with Indonesia in second, although they were well off the host nation’s haul of 111 with just two more days of competition to go.

Vietnam’s 1,500m runners set the pace at the brand new 20,000-seater athletics stadium in the main Games hub at Clark, with Nguyen Thi Oanh winning the women’s race in 4min 17.31sec and Duong Van Thai taking gold in the men’s final in a time of 4min 06.63sec.

There was another double in the 400m as Nguyen Thi Huyen won the women’s final and Tran Nhat Hoang clinched the men’s gold by just 0.1 seconds in a time of 46.56 seconds. And Le Tu Chinh defended her 2017 100m title, beating Filipina sprinter Kristina Marie Knott in a reversal of Saturday night’s 200m result.

In the nearby aquatics centre Singapore had another dominant evening, with golds in the women’s 50m freestyle and 4 x 100m medley relay, while the men’s team won the 50m breaststroke and 100m freestyle events. Vietnam won both men’s and women’s 400m individual medleys. Vietnam also secured the gold in the women’s football on Sunday evening.