Thach Kim Tuan and Nguyen Thanh Thao are expected to win medals for Vietnam at the Youth Olympic Games which will kick off on August 14 in Singapore.
They are among 13 Vietnamese athletes to leave for the first ever tournament on August 10 Hoang Manh Cuong, deputy head of the Elite Sport Department of the National Sport Administration.
Tuan will compete in the men's 56kg weightlifting event while Thao will perform in the women's 55kg taekwondo category.
Tuan is the first Vietnamese to win a ticket to the Olympics after his successful performance at the World Youth Weightlifting Championship's cadet category, where he won a silver medal last year. The event was one of the qualifiers for the Singapore Games. He later surprised his coaches and many others with a fifth-place finish at the world U20 tournament despite being only 16.
Tracking his progress, Vietnamese coaches believe he can follow in the footsteps of Olympic silver medalist Hoang Anh Tuan.
The youngster's achievements are reason for coaches to believe that he should take a medal in Singapore despite facing stiff competition from athletes from China, the Republic of Korea and Mexico.
Tuan will be the third Vietnamese to compete in Singapore at 6pm on August 15. Earlier, Nguyen Thi Hong, another weightlifter, will start her contest in the women's 44kg category. Hong took a bronze medal at the World Youth Weightlifting Championship in Thailand.
Thao is a rising taekwondo star. She earned her ticket after winning a bronze medal at the Games' qualifying round in Mexico in March. Thanks to that result, she was then called up to the national team and took part in different international tournaments as part of her intensive preparation for Singapore.
Apart from weightlifting and taekwondo, the Vietnamese team will also compete in five other track and field events, swimming, shooting, wrestling and badminton.
Vietnamese swimmers have received great support from sport leaders.
Nguyen Thi Kim Tuyen in the women's 100m and 200m butterfly and Tran Tam Nguyen in the women's 100m and 200m freestyle are set to compete, as well as the talented Hoang Quy Phuoc who is a wild card entry in the men's 100m and 200m freestyle events. The three took special training courses in China and according to coach Tran Duy My, the swimmers should do better than ever following their training.
The summer Youth Olympics is a pioneering initiative by the International Olympic Committee, with the aim of inspiring youth around the world to embrace, embody and express the Olympic values of excellence, friendship and respect.
Along with officials from the 205 National Olympic Committees the games will feature some 5,000 athletes, aged from 14-18, competing in 26 sports for 184 sets of medals. The games will end on August 26.(VNA)