Special report: 2008 Olympic Games

    By Huang Haimin, Bui Minh Long

    HANOI, July 14 (Xinhua) -- "The goal of Vietnam's sports delegation to the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games is to integrate into the Olympic movement, while striving to gain best results to confirm our sports status in the world's biggest sports arena," the president of the Vietnam Olympic Committee told Xinhua recently.

    To well prepare for Vietnam's participation in the games, hundreds of the country's elite athletes have been trained intensively in foreign countries, including China, said the committee's president Nguyen Danh Thai, who is also Deputy Minister of the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism.

    Twenty-two local athletes will attend the planet's biggest sporting event in the nine sports of athletics, swimming, gymnastics, shooting, taekwondo, weightlifting, table tennis, badminton and wushu.

    Vietnam's sports delegation consisting of 59 athletes, trainers, referees and state cadres is scheduled to participate in the event in August in Beijing, he said, adding that delegations of reporters and leaders of the Vietnam Olympic Committee will also attend it.

    "A high-ranking delegation led by Vietnamese State President Nguyen Minh Triet will attend the opening ceremony and activities of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games," Thai said.

    Vietnam annually sends national sports teams to China for intensive training and friendly competition, while China sends experts, trainers and athletes to Vietnam, helping improve performance of Vietnamese athletes. "This is one of cooperative programs which are effective and useful to Vietnam's preparations for the participation in the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games," Thai stated.

    On April 29, an Olympic torch relay in Vietnam's southern Ho Chi Minh City, the last leg of the Olympic flame's global journey outside China, was successfully and safely organized, he added.

    Vietnam is pinning its hopes on taekwondo and weightlifting at the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games, Hoang Vinh Giang, Vice President and General Secretary of the Vietnam Olympic Committee, said recently.

    Giang said he hoped three local taekwondo athletes, Hoang Ha Giang, Nguyen Van Hung and Nguyen Thi Hoai Thu, who have won automatic berths to the games, would bag home bronze medals. Weightlifters Hoang Anh Tuan and Nguyen Thi Thiet are also expected to gain Olympic medals.

    Vietnam participated in an Olympic games for the first time in 1980, and grabbed its first-ever Olympic medal in 2000 with the merit of woman taekwondo athlete Tran Hieu Ngan in the 57-kg weight category.