Vietnamese athletes prepare for three major Asian tournaments in 2024

Nguyen Manh Hung, General Secretary of the Vietnam Athletics Federation, has announced that the Asian region will host three events next year: the Asian Marathon Championship on Jan. 21 in China’s Hong Kong; the Asian Indoor Championship on Feb. 15-20 in Iran; and the Asian U20 Championship on April 22-28 in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

2024 is considered a relatively quiet year for Vietnamese athletics, as there will be no SEA Games or Asian Games. In addition to domestic tournaments, these major Asian events will serve as the primary competitions for Vietnamese athletes to gain experience and prepare for the SEA Games 33 in Thailand in 2025.

Vietnam will start their preparations for the 2024 Asian Marathon Championship with two tournaments in the first week of the new year. These tournaments are the Vietnam International Half Marathon on Jan. 1 in Hanoi and the National Ba Ra Mountain Climbing Tournament on Jan. 6 in Binh Phuoc Province. These events will attract the best long-distance runners in the country, and they will serve as a basis for selecting players for the 2024 Asian Marathon Championship.

The Vietnamese national athletics team will officially meet in early 2024 to prepare for the international events.

In previous competitions, the national marathon team represented Vietnam at the 32nd SEA Games in Cambodia in May 2023. Hoang Nguyen Thanh won a bronze medal in the men’s marathon category with a time of 2 hours and 35.49 minutes, and Le Thi Tuyet won a silver medal in the women’s marathon category with a time of 2 hours and 49.2 minutes. Both athletes will participate in the Vietnam International Half Marathon 2024. This event is the first race in Vietnam to be licensed, supervised, and operated by the Asian Athletics Association. In the inaugural season in January 2023, thousands of runners competed on the roads around Hoan Kiem Lake.

This year, the tournament, jointly organized by the Hanoi People’s Committee and the Vietnam Athletics Federation, is expected to attract even more elite runners and amateur marathoners who will compete on the first day of the new year.

As usual, athletes will participate in the half marathon (21 km), 10 km, and 5 km categories for professional and amateur competitors.