Nguyen Thi Anh Vien swiped up a bronze medal at the ongoing Asian Games (ASIAD) in Incheon, South Korea.

Viet Nam came third in the women's 400m individual medley event yesterday with a time of 4min 39.45sec in the afternoon final. Vien came after Chinese Olympic champion Ye Shiwen (4:32.97) and Japanese swimmer Shimizu Sakiko (4:38.63).

Ye's result is a new Games record.

Earlier in the morning, the 18-year-old Vien swam 4:47.71 to qualify for a berth in the final.

Vien earned Viet Nam's first swimming medal in ASIAD history. She will take part in two other events later this week. Vien is expected to bring home at least one gold.

In other sports, Vietnamese athletes bagged three bronze medals.

Fencing quartet Nguyen Tien Nhat, Nguyen Phuoc Den, Pham Hung Duong and Truong Tran Nhat Minh failed in the men's team epee event when facing their host rival. They pocketed a bronze.

Tan Thi Ly lost 0-2 to China's Wang Cong in a semi-final match for the wushu's sanshou (combat) women's 60kg category. She took home a bronze.

Earlier, Nguyen Thanh Tung finished third in the men's taolu taijijian and taijiquan all-round event with 19.24 points. Chen Zhouli of China won, scoring 19.55 points.

His teammate Bui Truong Giang was better, as he promised to have at least a silver medal when he beat Soukaphone Khamla of Laos 2-0 to enter the semi-final match for the men's 56kg pool today.

Viet Nam also had three representatives advance to the artistic gymnastics final.

Badminton events will start today with Vietnamese players facing challenging early rounds.

National top player Nguyen Tien Minh, who is ranked 23rd in the world, receives a bye to begin from the second round where he faces Boonsak Ponsana of Thailand, who is number 14 in men's singles.

His teammate Pham Cao Cuong's first task seems easier – his opponent is U Leong Lek, who is not very well-known. But if he wins, a bigger obstacle, Srikanth Nammalwar of India, ranked No 22 in the world, awaits him in the second round.

In the women's draw, Vu Thi Trang will meet former world champion Intanon Ratchanok of Thailand, who is now ranked fifth globally. But Le Thu Huyen has a more narrow chance of beating world-ranked No 4 Sung Ji-hyun of the host country.

With one gold, two silver and eight bronze medals after four days of competitions, Viet Nam are in 10th place out of 45 participating delegations.

China are leading the medal tally with 40 gold, followed by South Korea with 18 and Japan with 12.

VNS/VNN