Thanh Nhi - pride of Thua Thien Hue archery

Third in the whole delegation

Archery at the 9 th National Sports Festival 2022 had 30 events with the participation of 215 athletes from 20 provinces.
December 13 was a great competition day when archery athlete Nguyen Thi Thanh Nhi of Thua Thien Hue scooped 2 golds in a row in the women's 30m one-string bow and women's 50m one-string bow.

In the women's 30m one-string bow, Thanh Nhi scored 350 points, breaking the record at the National Sports Festival (The record determined at the Festival 2014 was 349 points). In the women's 50m 1-string bow, Nguyen Thi Thanh Nhi scored 329 points, ranked above two Hanoi athletes, Tran Thi Tra My (328 points) and Trieu Huyen Diep (324 points).

Thanh Nhi (3rd on the right) preparing for competition

Earlier, athlete Nguyen Thi Thanh Nhi also snatched a gold in the women's 60m one-string bow. Simultaneously, she earned a silver in the women's one-string bow all-round event.

In the women's 60m one-string bow, Nguyen Thi Thanh Nhi scored 333 points, ranking above two Hanoi athletes, Trieu Huyen Diep and Do Thi Anh Nguyet (with the same 330 points).

In the women's one-string all-round event, Nguyen Thi Thanh Nhi scored 656 points to win a silver (breaking the festival record), ranking below Hanoi's athlete Hoang Phuong Thao with 660 points and above another Hanoi athlete, Trieu Huyen Diep with 648 points.

At the end of the competition, Thua Thien Hue archery team ranked 3rd in the whole delegation with 3 golds, 3 silvers, breaking 2 records.Topping was Hanoi delegation with 9 golds, 8 silvers and 12 bronzes, breaking 2 records. Second was Vinh Long with 6 golds, 5 silvers and 3 bronzes, breaking 2 records.

According to the representative of Thua Thien Hue sports delegation attending the National Sports Festival 2022, this is a great but unsurprising achievement of archer Nguyen Thi Thanh Nhi.

"Gold" girl Thanh Nhi

2022 is a great year for archer Nguyen Thi Thanh Nhi. In March 2022, at the National Excellent Archery Championship 2022, Thanh Nhi made history in Vietnamese archery when brilliantly winning as many as 5 golds and generated a new "phenomenon" of Vietnamese archery. In the history of Vietnamese archery, never has there been an athlete who won 5 individual golds in a row at a national tournament. Thanh Nhi was the first female archer to achieve this.

At the 31st SEA Games, athlete Nguyen Thi Thanh Nhi did not achieve the "gold dream" when she only won a silver in the women's team archery. However, in early September, Nguyen Thi Thanh Nhi took "sweet revenge" at the Singapore Open Archery Tournament 2022.

Alongside Do Thi Anh Nguyet, Thanh Nhi joined in the female team's one-string archery, winning a gold. In the individual women's one-string bow, Thanh Nhi beat Anh Nguyet in the final and won a second gold.

With the initial contribution of Thanh Nhi, Vietnamese archers showed their dominance at the Singapore Open Archery Tournament 2022: they missed only 1 gold out of a total of 8 medal sets.

Archery is a novel sport for Thua Thien Hue. Established in 2014, Hue archery initially had only 3 athletes.

In 2015, Thanh Nhi joined Thua Thien Hue archery. Only after one year did this girl born in 2001 get cap for the national youth team. Thanh Nhi quickly demonstrated her talent: in 2017,  she kept pace with the national record of the women's 60m one-string bow at the National Youth Championship.

Two years later, Thanh Nhi created an "earthquake" at the National Strong Team Championship: smashing the old record that existed for more than a decade and setting a new national record in the 30 m one-string bow. Since then, Thanh Nhi has been known as the locomotive of Hue archery.

Unforgettably, before the departure date to attend the 9th National Sports Festival 2022, Mr. Lai Dang Quang, head coach of the provincial archery division, said that Thanh Nhi was the "gold" hope. The division set Thua Thien Hue’s archery target of contributing a gold to the overall achievement of the Thua Thien Hue sports delegation at this National Sports Festival. The achievement of 3 golds and 2 silvers won by Nguyen Thi Thanh Nhi has been beyond all  expectations. Thanh Nhi deserves to be the pride of Thua Thien Hue sports delegation.

Story and photos: BA TRI