Truong Thi Kim Tuyen (right) in the internal final match of the women's 49kg weight class - Photo: NK
The Vietnam International Taekwondo Open - CJ 2025 took place on June 27 and 28 at the Go Vap District Gymnasium. This is the first G1 tournament organized by the Vietnam Taekwondo Federation (VTF).
The Vietnamese taekwondo team led the delegation with 8 gold medals, far surpassing South Korea - the cradle of martial arts - which only won 3 gold medals.
There are not many strong foreign athletes.
Korea only brought fighters from Donga University. This is a school with a very strong taekwondo movement. But the fighters coming to Vietnam are not the strongest.
Lim Dae Won - the gold medalist in the men's 63kg category is ranked 119th in the World Taekwondo Federation (WTF) rankings. The 21-year-old is seeded 4th, behind Ajay Kunmar (India), who is ranked 82nd and is the number 1 seed in the tournament.
Similarly, Jin Ryoo - the gold medalist in the men's 74kg category - ranked 160th and was seeded number 2 at the tournament. The highest ranked athlete in this category was Pak Lam Or (England, ranked 62nd), seeded number 1.
Miseo Kwon - the athlete who won the gold medal in the women's 73kg weight class has not yet entered the rankings.
The two highest-ranked athletes participating in the tournament are Mao Nishida (Japan) - 43rd in the women's 53kg weight class and Lo Wai Fung (Hong Kong) - 47th in the men's 68kg weight class. Notably, Thai and Filipino boxers with much higher rankings did not participate in the tournament.
Ly Hong Phuc (right) defeated No. 1 seed Pak Lam Or in the men's 74kg semi-finals - Photo: NK
HCV is too easy
In fact, Vietnamese taekwondo only won 2 valuable gold medals.
In the final of the men's 68kg weight class, unseeded boxer Vo Minh Man defeated No. 1 seed Lo Wai Fung (Hong Kong). No. 3 seed Nguyen Thi Loan defeated No. 1 seed Mao Nishida (Japan) in the final of the women's 53kg weight class.
Even the athletes who only won silver or bronze medals had impressive results. Ly Hong Phuc defeated No. 1 seed Pak Lam Or (British-Korean) 2-0 in the semi-finals and only lost to No. 2 seed Jin Ryoo (Korean) in the final of the men's 74kg category.
Although he only won the bronze medal, Pham Dang Quang also made his mark in the men's 63kg category. He defeated No. 1 seed Kumar Ajay (India) in the quarterfinals before losing to Lim Dae Won (Korea) in the semi-finals.
But the remaining gold medals were too easy. Because besides the opponents being mostly not strong, the number of Vietnamese athletes participating in a weight class was too favorable to win gold medals.
Nguyen Van Lam won the gold medal after defeating Le Minh Vuong 2-1 in the men's 87kg category, which only had these two athletes participating. Lem Thi Thao won the gold medal after defeating Poetri Ingrid (Singapore) 2-0 in the women's 62kg category, which also had only two athletes competing.
The same goes for Bac Thi Khiem's gold medal when she defeated Nina Urganaeva (Armenia) in the final. In the women's 67kg category, there were only 4 athletes, 3 of whom were from Vietnam. Despite losing, she won the bronze medal.
The women's 49kg weight class had 5 athletes participating, of which Vietnam had 3. As a result, athlete who participated in the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, Truong Thi Kim Tuyen, easily defeated Ngo Thi Hong Nhung 2-0 in the internal final match.
The women's 57kg weight class was also an internal final. Tran Thi Anh Tuyet won the gold medal after defeating Pham Ngoc Cham 2-1.
Nguyen Hong Trong easily defeated Pan Keston (Singapore) 16-2 and 7-2 in the final of the men's 54kg weight class. In the semi-finals, Hong Trong also defeated Jeong Yong Jae (Korea) quite easily.
So instead of being excited about winning 8 gold medals and taking the top spot, Vietnamese taekwondo needs to see that it still needs to make more efforts to return to the Olympic arena as the set goal.
Source: https://tuoitre.vn/taekwondo-viet-nam-tu-choi-voi-nhau-la-chinh-20250628225027797.htm
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