Beach volleyball athletes busy with tourneys

The beach volleyball season will begin on Thursday with the national championships Tour 1 in Phu Yen Province.

Tour 2 will be organised in Hai Phong in September, while the final round is scheduled in Khanh Hoa Province in December.

Meanwhile, the national athletes will have a busy calendar with six international competitions this year.

The women's team will compete at the Tuan Chau-Hai Long Women's Beach Volleyball Open next month.

The next tournaments for both men and women are the Asian Beach Volleyball Beach Tour in Thailand in April, the 17th Asian Games in South Korea in September, the fourth Asian Beach Games in Thailand in November and the Asian Championships in China, also in November.

The young athletes will test their skills at the qualifying round of the China Youth Olympics from April 2-6 in Thailand.

The Viet Nam Volleyball Federation has recently been supported with VND1 billion (US$47,600) by the PetroVietnam Low Pressure Gas Distribution Joint Stock Company.

This is the fourth year the company has sponsored beach volleyball activities, including organising tournaments and sending teams abroad for training.

Vietnamese shooters compete at ISSF World Cup

Vietnamese marksmen will take part in the ISSF World Cup at Fort Benning in the US from March 26 to April 3.

The three shooters are Olympian and World Cup champion Hoang XuanVinh, Southeast Asian champion Ha Minh Thanh and SEA Games gold medalist Tran QuocCuong. They will be accompanied by coach Nguyen Thi Nhung and expert Park Chung-gun of the Republic of Korea.

The team arrived at the venue on March 20 to practise and acclimatize themselves to the weather and infrastructure.

The competitions will start on March 28.

Da Nang swimmers win championship

Swimmers from the central Da Nang city grabbed 15 gold, one silver and four bronze medals to win the National Short-Course Swimming Championship.

HCM City came in second with 13 gold, one silver and five bronze medals, while Hai Phong ranked third with four gold, four silver and three bronze medals.

In the last competition held on Sunday, Long An's Pham Thanh Nguyen set the only new record of the day when he swam the men's 1,500-metre freestyle in 15 minutes, 41.63 seconds, beating the old record of 15:59.26 set by Lam Quang Nhat from HCM City last year.

Hoang Quy Phuoc of Da Nang, who set a new record in the men's 200-metre butterfly by clocking 1:58.71 (the old record is 1:59.55) on Saturday, bagged the last two gold medals in the men's 200-metre individual medley and 400-metre medley relay on Sunday.

He also collected 14 gold medals at the championship, while HCM City's Nguyen Thi Kim Tuyen grabbed 10 gold medals in the women's individual and team events.

Tuyen and her teammates clocked 3:58.19 in the women's 400-metre freestyle relay, beating a seven-year-old record of 3:59.43 which was set by the HCM City's team.

Emphatic Binh Duong show title dominance

For the first time in the season, Becamex Binh Duong emphasised their title credentials by delivering a crushing 5-2 defeat on Vissai Ninh Binh in a ninth round V-League 2014 match at the Binh Duong Stadium.

The victory, Binh Duong's fourth win in their last five matches, helped the two-time champions climb up to second place on the rankings table with 14 points, eight behind current leaders Thanh Hoa.

Huynh Kesley and Abass Cheik Dieng each grabbed a brace while Suleiman Abdullahi scored the other one, all in the second half.

Hoang Danh Ngoc and Le Quang Hung each scored one goal in each half for Ninh Binh.

Despite playing at home and seen as pre-match favourites, the final score was still a surprise for home fans, especially after the display put on by the visitors in the first half.

The visitors began the match confidently and created two chances within the first few minutes. Jamaican striker Kavin Bryan headed the first over the crossbar in the fourth minute and struck the other straight into the hands of host custodian Nguyen Quoc Thien Else a minute later.

This set the tone for coach Nguyen Van Sy's team to open the scoring and the goal came from Ngoc, who sprinted forward on the right wing to head home a cross-field, long pass from the left.

The home team fought back strongly and created their own chances but they all went abegging, Dieng being the culprit in each case. Meanwhile, Ninh Binh frequently threatened with their counter-attacks, and striker Le Van Thang fluffed an easy chance.

Binh Duong could have had the equaliser before half-time if attacking midfielder Nguyen Trong Hoang and Dieng were more accurate in one-to-one face-offs with keeper Nguyen Van Hung.

However, the home team's strikers made amends in the second half, delighting their fans with as many as five goals.

Huynh Kesley opened the floodgates, scraping home a low shot past Hung after showing good footwork to beat two Ninh Binh defenders.

The visitors responded immediately with a quick goal from Hung, who was let free by Bryan and went on to shrug off a defending challenge to restore the lead.

But this score lasted only two minutes before Hoang Van Binh collected a rebound and floated it into the box. Dieng fled into box and put the ball past Hung to make it 2-2.

Suleiman Abdullahi headed home a corner on the left to put the home team ahead for the first time in the match.

Binh Duong's coach and his staff were freed from all worries when Kesley converted a penalty in the 65th minute to establish a two-goal lead. Chu Ngoc Anh used his hand to clear Hoang's cross, and was spotted by the lineman.

Dieng scored his second goal in the 84th minute to wrap up a comprehensive win for the home team.