Nguyen Thi Oanh breaks national record at Vietnam International Half Marathon 2024

Nguyen Thi Oanh and Hoang Nguyen Thanh are two athletes who made a strong impression at the Vietnam International Half Marathon 2024 (VIHM 2024).

In the women's category, Nguyen Thi Oanh and Le Thi Tuyet created a tense and extremely attractive duel. The two maintained their competition throughout the race, only in the final meters, the winner was decided when Nguyen Thi Oanh launched her signature sprints, broke away and defended the VIHM 2024 championship.

With a time of 1 hour 15 minutes 10 seconds, Nguyen Thi Oanh broke her own record at the tournament. In the first season, Oanh finished first after 1 hour 15 minutes 23 seconds. More impressively, the owner of 4 gold medals at the 32nd SEA Games also broke her own national record for the half marathon distance (1 hour 15 minutes 24 seconds).

Nguyen Thi Oanh expressed her surprise at her new record. She shared: "Today was a really great day. The race had a lot of potential young people, especially Le Thi Tuyet. The two sisters had a great race when they chased each other throughout the race. I was luckier in the last seconds of acceleration..

Before the tournament, I was quite worried because I had some health problems, but today everything was great! I was very surprised and happy to be informed that I had set a new record. I hope this will be a milestone and a stepping stone to continue my journey towards the next goals and start a brilliant new year 2024."

In the men's category, Hoang Nguyen Thanh, in his first time participating in VIHM 2024, won the championship. The SEA Games 31 marathon champion faced competition in the first half of the race from Sanchai Namkhet, Chepkwony Kipkemei Victor, and Nguyen Van Lai.

But in the second half, Hoang Nguyen Thanh, with his perseverance and reasonable tactics, broke away to finish first with a time of 1 hour 6 minutes 39 seconds. Hoang Nguyen Thanh's championship was even more meaningful when he broke Do Quoc Luat's national half-marathon record (1 hour 7 minutes).

Sanchai Namkhet was the second (1 hour 7 minutes 56 seconds) and the Thai player changed the color of the medal when he finished third in the previous season. After Sanchai Namkhet was Nguyen Van Lai after 1 hour 8 minutes 32 seconds.

In addition to the two Advanced categories for professional athletes from the Vietnamese athletics team and international professional athletes; the Amateur category for domestic and foreign athletes registering for 3 distances: half marathon (21.0975km), 10km and 5km, VIHM 2024 has additional categories such as Team, Sport Family and Companion Walking.

Starting first, the 10km Advanced category for men and women had no surprises when two Vietnamese athletes, Nguyen Trung Cuong and mother of one Pham Thi Hue, did not have to face any competition to finish first with results of 31 minutes 57 seconds and 35 minutes 48 seconds respectively.

In the amateur category, the men's 21km category recorded very remarkable achievements. All 5 athletes in the top 5 of this category had very good results, with parameters of around 1 hour and 16 minutes.