* Pencak silat: Vietnam ranks second at ASEAN championships
Vietnam’s pencak silat team settled for the second position at the ASEAN Pencak Silat Championships wrapped up Thursday in Malaysia.
After four days of competition, Vietnam finally won seven gold, four silver and six bronze medals.
In the tanding or fighting competitions, Duong Van Thao and Nguyen Van Ty successively achieved gold medals in the 50kg and 75kg categories for men, while Ca Thi Mai and Tran Thuy Minh Ly got two more gold medals in the 50kg and 75kg categories for women.
In the seni competitions or performance, Nguyen Huu Tuan - Nguyen Thanh Tung, Ngo Thi Quyen – Pham Thi Ha, Ngo Thi Quyen – Pham Thi Ha – Nguyen Thi Thuy were also awarded with gold medals in men’s double seni, women’s double seni and women’s team seni categories.
Host Malaysia was announced champion after earning seven gold, five silver and six bronze medals, more than one medal (a silver one) in comparison with Vietnam.
* Chess: Vietnam’s Liem attends elite tournament in Germany
Vietnam’s Quang Liem will compete with five other world top-ranked chess grandmaster in an invite-only event named Dortmund Sparkassen Chess-Metting from Jul 21 in Dortmund, Germany.
These five players are Russia’s Vladimir Kramnik – elo 2781, America’s Japanese-born Hikaru Nakamura – elo 2770, Ukraine’s Ruslan Ponomariov – elo 2764, Netherlands’ Anish Giri – elo 2717 and Germany’s Georg Meier – elo 2656.
The tournament this year also follows the 6-player and double round-robin format. It means one player will meet the other five in turn twice.
The pairings show that Quang Liem will play Georg Meier, Hikaru Nakamura, Vladimir Kramnik, Anish Giri and Ruslan Ponomariov successively from Jul 21-25 (regional time zone) in the first leg.
The second leg will be on Jul 27 and the tournament will end at the end of this month.
In the world ranking last updated on Wednesday, Liem now stands at 37th position and his elo is 2709.4.
* Taekwondo: Int’l Championship kicks off in Vietnam
497 athletes and coaches of 29 clubs from 12 countries will gather in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam the 9th International Clubs Open Taekwondo Championship.
35 over 55 medals will be given to athletes in the sparring or fighting events, while the other 20 will be awarded to the athletes in the Poomsae events or performance.
The clubs’ rankings are announced based on the total number of medals they receive.
The 9th edition of this taekwondo festival takes place from Jul 22-24 at Phan Dinh Phung stadium.
12 countries participating in this event include Vietnam, South Korea, Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, Pakistan, Thailand and Australia
