Quang Ninh athletes won medals at U23 Asian Canoeing Championships
The Vietnamese national canoeing team delivered an outstanding performance, winning a total of 10 gold medals at the recently concluded U23 Asian and Southeast Asian Canoeing Championships held in Thailand.
Notably, Bui Mai Hanh and Nguyen Thi Mai, two young athletes from Quang Ninh, contributed significantly to this achievement. As members of the women’s four-person crew, they helped secure a silver medal - Vietnam’s best-ever result in this event at the continental level.
According to the Quang Ninh Provincial Center for Sports Training and Competition, the team comprising Bui Mai Hanh, Nguyen Thi Mai, Hoang Thi Huong, and Hoang Thi Lam finished second with a time of 1:40.730, narrowly behind Uzbekistan’s first-place finish of 1:38.260. This milestone not only marks a personal breakthrough for the two Quang Ninh athletes but also represents a significant advancement for Vietnamese canoeing on the regional sports map.
In addition, Bui Mai Hanh clinched a bronze medal in the mixed K4 500m event, which featured two male and two female paddlers at the Southeast Asian Championships.
Born in 2006 and 2005 respectively, Bui Mai Hanh and Nguyen Thi Mai are members of the provincial canoeing team under the Quang Ninh Center for Sports Training and Competition. They are regarded as among the most promising young talents in Quang Ninh’s canoeing scene. The two were initially trained by coach Do Van Hieu, now Deputy Director of the Center. Their development has since continued under the mentorship of the next generation of coaches, particularly Vu Thi Linh, enabling them to grow into two of the team’s leading athletes.
Their achievements serve as a testament to the success of Vietnam’s talent development strategy in canoeing and offer strong promise ahead of the 33rd SEA Games later this year. With a solid technical foundation, resilient competitive spirit, and methodical local-level investment, both athletes are expected to play a key role in the future of canoeing at both the provincial and national levels.
