Difficult to approach 300 kg

In the 61 kg weightlifting category at the Olympics, Trinh Van Vinh will compete with 11 other athletes, all of whom have impressive achievements. Of these, about 5-6 weightlifters had achievements before the Olympics of approximately 300 kg total lifts or more, namely Li Fabin of China, Morris Hampton (USA), Irawan Eko (Indonesia), Massidda Sergio (Italy) and Silachai Theerapong (Thailand). Meanwhile, Trinh Van Vinh of Vietnam, although in the past had a total lift of up to 307 kg such as at the 29th SEA Games in 2017 or 299 kg at the 2018 ASIAD, is currently only around 294 kg. This number shows that without great efforts, it will be difficult to close the gap with the above group of strong athletes.

Minh Tu

Mr. Ngo Ich Quan, Head of High Performance Sports Department 1, Department of Sports and Physical Training, member of the Vietnamese delegation at the Olympics, commented: "In early 2019, Vinh was banned from competing for 4 years, which greatly affected his performance. Next was a chronic leg injury that caused Vinh to struggle with many difficulties. Fortunately, Vinh had a strong will and high determination, so he still won a ticket to the Olympics. Therefore, at this time, it is difficult for us to demand high achievements from Vinh, because approaching the 300 kg total lift is something that can only be achieved through intense effort and luck." Vinh himself is also making efforts every day, every hour to improve his parameters. Recently, his health has improved a lot, the pain in his leg still affects him but is not too serious. According to the assessment of the weightlifting team's coaching board, his snatch has stabilized at 130 - 132 kg, and his clean and jerk sometimes exceeded 163 kg, which is better than his performance at the World Weightlifting Cup in Phuket (Thailand) in April 2024. With this trend, if he maintains his form and good mentality, Vietnamese fans will still expect an explosion from Trinh Van Vinh, at least approaching the 285 - 287 kg mark to create pressure on other weightlifters in the Olympic race.

Need reasonable strategy

After many years of success with Hoang Kim Tuan's silver medal at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, Vietnamese weightlifters are now finding it difficult to compete for the top 3 positions. However, in each category of snatch or clean and jerk, if there is a reasonable strategy, there is still hope to approach the group of strong lifters and will change the balance unexpectedly.

We still remember in 2016 at the Rio Olympics, Thach Kim Tuan performed quite well in the 56 kg weight class. That was the time when Tuan had just recovered from a leg injury, but the weightlifter from Ho Chi Minh City had an excellent performance in the 130 kg snatch. That result made everyone happy because with the same result of 130 kg, Tuan had a lighter body weight than Arli Chontey of Kazakhstan, so he was ranked higher, fourth, opening up the opportunity to compete for a medal. However, that achievement became meaningless when Tuan, for many different reasons, failed to perform successfully in the clean and jerk event. After the first failure at 157 kg, the coaching board decided to let Tuan play the "all or nothing" style by lifting the weight to 160 kg, but he failed. With this unsuccessful result, Tuan's total lift was also lost, leaving many regrets. Because if he could just stabilize the next push at 157 kg, at least the Vietnamese weightlifter would be in the top 5 and would not go home empty-handed. This lesson is necessary for the coaching staff and weightlifter Trinh Van Vinh to come up with a reasonable strategy and hopefully achieve the best possible results.

Thanhnien.vn

Source: https://thanhnien.vn/lich-thi-dau-olympic-cua-viet-nam-hom-nay-trinh-van-vinh-can-vuot-qua-chinh-minh-185240806215302399.htm