TOP BET. The Philippines' Carlos Edriel Yulo competes during the men's vault final at the World Gymnastics Championships in Liverpool, England in November 2022. He will be among the favorites during the Asian Artistic Gymnastics Championships in Singapore on June 15 to 18, 2023. (Photo from AFP/VNA)
HÀ NỘI – Việt Nam will send potential competitors to join a star-studded field at the Asian Artistic Gymnastics Championships to be held at the Singapore Sports Hub later this month.
The Vietnamese squad includes three Southeast (SEA) Games champions, Lê Thanh Tùng, Văn Vĩ Lương and Nguyễn Văn Khánh Phong, along with young talent Trần Đình Vương and Nguyễn Phước Hải.
At the 32nd SEA Games in Cambodia last month, Tùng, Lương and Phong won the team event, Phong took his second gold in the men's rings, and Tùng bagged silver in the men's individual.
Veteran Trần Đoàn Quỳnh Nam and Phạm Như Phương are accompanied by young faces Lê Thu Thùy and Lê Thị Thanh Phượng as the female representatives.
World champion Carlos Yulo (the Philippines), Olympic medalists Lee Chih-kai (Chinese Taipei) and Yeo Seo-jeong (South Korea), and Asian champion and World Championship silver medalist Ahmad Abu Al-Soud (Jordan) will headline the June 15-18 event at the OCBC Arena.
Yulo was the two-time world championship winner in the men's floor exercise in 2019 and vault in 2021. Aleah Finnegan and Emma Malabuyo will be the star attractions.
Finnegan was part of Team USA which won the team gold at the 2019 Pan American Games. She represented the Philippines at the 2021 SEA Games here and took home two golds and two silvers.
Malabuyo, who will be making her debut for the Philippines, has been part of the US national team since 2016 and was an alternate for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.
South Korea’s Yeo is the current Olympic bronze medalist in the vault.
Chinese Taipei Lee is the current Olympic silver medalist in the pommel horse, having also won a silver and a bronze at the 2019 and 2018 world championships respectively.
He could be in for a showdown with Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al-Soud, a double Asian champion and World Championships silver medalist in the event.
Some of the other prominent names are legend Oksana Chusovitina of Uzbekistan, an eight-time Olympian who is still competing at the age of 47, and Indonesia’s Rifda Irfanaluthfi, a silver medalist in the floor exercise at the 2018 Asian Games in Indonesia.
China’s Yang Jiaxing, a member of the squad that won the team gold at the 2022 World Championships, will also be in Singapore.
The Asian Championships is a key event on the road towards the Paris Olympics. The top five teams at the championships will progress to the world championships in Belgium from September 30 to October 8.
From the world championships, nine teams will qualify for the 2024 Paris Olympics.
At the 2022 Asian Championships in Doha, China topped the medal tally with eight golds, three silvers and five bronzes while the Philippines (3, 1, 0) and South Korea (2, 2, 4) were second and third, respectively.
This is the first time that Singapore will host a continental tournament. The country will also host the Asian Junior Artistic Gymnastics Championships from June 10-12 at the same venue.
Việt Nam will take seven athletes, four men and three women, to the junior competition. (VNS)
