V-League the No.1 in Southeast Asia: Indonesia coach

The top-tier football league in Vietnam, V-League, is the number one in Southeast Asia in terms of attraction and quality of competition, said Indonesia’s head coach Alfred Riedl.

The Austrian-born man, who has 14 years of working as coaches in Vietnam, Laos, and Indonesia, said footballers in Vietnam are paid higher salary and bonus than other nations in the region.

“It has drawn qualified players from Thailand, Singapore or Indonesia to enlist for V-League in Vietnam,” he said.

“Payment for domestic players in Vietnam is also higher than in Indonesia. That helps motivate players to strive to demonstrate themselves on the pitch to deserve the payment.”

The 62-year-old coach agreed that violence, match fixing and quality of referees have degraded football development but these problems are universal, not unique to Vietnam.

“In Indonesia, violence is even more serious than in Vietnam and referees seem unable to control it,” Riedl said.

Coach Riedl had three spells of training the Vietnamese national team, from 1998 – 2001, 2003-04, and 2005-07. He later came to Laos in 2009 and worked with Indonesia from 2010.

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Restoring portraits of ancient Vietnamese

A group of scientists has tried to restore the faces of ancient
Vietnamese people who lived thousand years ago, revealing interesting
stories about their lives.

Eight years ago, people discovered
human skulls and skeletons dating back to the Dong Son age – 2,100 years
ago – in a tomb in Dong Xa, Kim Dong district, Hung Yen province.

With
a desire to discover more about the life of ancient Vietnamese people,
Dr. Nguyen Viet, Director of the Southeast Asia Prehistory Centre and
his colleagues reconstructed the face of a 17 to 18-year-old girl living
in Dong Son age, from the skull they found.

To do that the
scientists had to X-ray 100 people in Hung Yen province to check, adjust
and find out fundamental parameters of the figure of ancient people in
Dong Xa.

After this step, scientists continued to
restore the faces of three more women and a man, of whom the oldest was
about 40-45 years old. The scientists rebuilt not only the shape, but
also facial appearances.

Viet’s research on 60 Dong Son age
skeletons unearthed in Dong Xa showed that the average height of women
at that time was about 1.40m-1.50m and men, between 1.45m-1.65m.

For
long-term research, Dr. Viet built a place to store 70 skeletons of
ancient Vietnamese people, including the remains of those of Hoa Binh
culture dated tens of thousands of years ago, at Pham Huy Thong museum
in Quang Ninh province.

Scientists of the Southeast Asia
Prehistory Centre also worked with foreign counterparts to study and
detect common diseases of ancient Vietnamese people as well as the
reasons for their deaths.

They also studied samples of collected clothes, finding that the clothes were made from flax fibre.

Dr. Viet said that he plans to open the first museum of wax models of
ancient Vietnamese people and cooperate with US experts to restore the
faces and figures of these people using 3D technology./.

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Southeast Asia remains football’s backwaters

Thailand’s coach Steve Darby calls on Southeast Asian nations to improve their football infrastructure for developments

Long considered a sick man in Asia, Southeast Asian football has been unable to get rid of the tag despite making great efforts in the past decade.

No country from the region has ever won a title at the Asian level, and Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia, Singapore, and Malaysia seem highly unlikely to change that any time soon.

Peter Butler – a former midfielder at English club West Ham who has coaching experience in Singapore, Malaysia, and Indonesia -- said Southeast Asia is the “little boy” of Asia.

“They need better infrastructure and qualified managers.

“Japan and South Korea have pulled far ahead of them.”

Thailand’s coach Steve Darby also stressed the vital role of infrastructure in developing football.

Alfred Riedl, Vietnam’s former coach and currently head of the Indonesian team, said youth training plays the most important role but many nations in the region have failed to do it.

“They are not patient to wait for 10 years for a generation of young players to mature,” he added. “The period is longer than the office terms of football officials who need instant results.”

Cambodia’s Australian-born coach Scott O’Donnell pointed to another aspect of the problem: “Southeast Asian teams seem to focus on competing with one another and not on longer-term plans to catch up with the world.”

Golf experiences new wave of popularity

by Vuong Tri Dung

HCM CITY — Golf has been played in western countries for centuries and has recently become even more popular all over the world. It will also be added to the Olympics in 2016.

Following an interruption due to war, golf made a comeback to Viet Nam along with the country's global integration.

In recent years the sport has begun gaining popularity with the advent of many good golf courses, domestic and international competitions, as well as the establishment of local golf associations like the Ha Noi Golf Association.

The Viet Nam Golf Association lists some of the highlights of the past year.

1. Golf become a sport at the National Sports Games for the first time, with a competition held at the Ocean Dunes golf club in Phan Thiet. The event, held from August 11 to 14, attracted golfers from 11 provinces and cities. HCM City won the men's event while Ba Ria-Vung Tau won the women's event.

2. The Mercedes-Benz Masters Viet Nam, one of the most important professional golf competitions in Southeast Asia, was organised last October at the Song Be course in the southern province of Binh Duong with 33 top players in the region taking part. Malaysian Nicolas Fung won the title, the first of his career, as the US$60,000 tournament used the match-play format for the first time.

3. Five young Vietnamese golfers qualified for the Faldo Series Asia Grand Final in China. Do Le Gia Dat and Nguyen Tri Dung went through after finishing first and second in the men's U21 event at the Youth National Golf Championships. Ngo Bao Nghi and Luu Thi Viet Nga finished first and second in the women's U21 event. Truong Chi Quan won the final spot with a win in the boys' U16 event.

4. The Viet Nam Amateur Open and Viet Nam Ladies Championships were held in Da Lat in June. The former attracted many top golfers in the Southeast Asia, including the gold, silver, and bronze medallists at the Southeast Asian Games. Thai golfer Wasin won the title while Viet Nam's Trinh Van Tho finished eighth. Ngo Bao Nghi won the Viet Nam Ladies Championships.

5. The Viet Nam Senior Championships was organised for the third straight year at the King's Island golf course in the north in March, with Duong Thanh winning the title.

6. The second Match Play Golf Championships featuring foreign professionals and amateurs working and living in Viet Nam was organised at the Montgomerie Links golf course in the central province of Quang Nam. Nguyen Thai Duong won the overall crown while Australian Scott Riddick won the division for foreign players. Nguyen Thi Ngoc Dung won the women's event and veteran Phan Thanh Chien finished first in the seniors' event. — VNS

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VN exceeds previous tallies

Fast lane: Vietnamese sprinter Vu Thi Huong (fourth left) crosses the finishing line in the women's 200m final at the 16th Asian Games in Guangzhou. Huong won silver. — AFP/VNA Photo   Golden girl: Karate artist Le Bich Phuong (right) deals a three-point kick to the face of Japan's Kobayashi Miki to win a gold medal for Viet Nam. — VNA/VNS Photo Quoc Khanh   Get a grip: Silver medallist Nguyen Thi Lua of Viet Nam (right) takes on gold medallist So Sim-hyang of North Korea during the women's freestyle 48kg wrestling competition. — AFP/VNA Photo

HCM CITY — The Olympics sports of athletics, rowing, and wrestling shined at the 2010 Asian Games (ASIAD) in Guangzhou, China, providing moments for sports fans to savour after Viet Nam won more medals than in previous years.

With only one day to go, Viet Nam has won 33 medals of all types at the ASIAD 2010, but the country's current 23rd place on the medal tally is the second worst place Viet Nam has had since the country returned to the continental games in 1982.

Viet Nam did not compete at ASIAD 1986 in Seoul, South Korea, while Viet Nam's worst performance was at ASIAD 1990 in Beijing, China, when it did not win any medals.

Teenager Le Bich Phuong yesterday morning grabbed front-page headlines of both major newswires and printed newspapers nationwide when she ended the gold drought for the country at ASIAD and lifted the country four spots in the medal tally on Thursday.

The most noticeable achievement at ASIAD, however, was the phenomenal success in athletics and the unexpected medals from rowing and wrestling.

High marks

Like previous Asian Games, Vietnamese athletics teams came to the Asian Games in Guangzhou to compete and achieve the best possible result, or hope for at least a bronze medal.

"I came to the games with the hope for a bronze medal in the 100m event and a slight hope for the 200m event," said Vu Thi Huong, sprint queen of Southeast Asia.

But the team made a historic breakthrough when it won five medals, all of them in important events in athletics. Previously, Viet Nam had never won an athletics medal at ASIAD.

Vu Thi Huong opened the historic page for Viet Nam's athletics at ASIAD with a bronze medal in the women's 100m event on Tuesday.

One day later, Truong Thanh Hang, the medium-distance top runner in Southeast Asia, bettered Huong's achievement with a silver medal in the women's 1,500m.

The success reached a climax on Thursday when Huong and Hang won silvers in the women's 200m and 800m events, while Vu Van Huyen also brought home a bronze in the men's decathlon event after overcoming many powerhouses, including Japan and China.

Success gave confidence to the athletes and changed the sports officials' mentality towards Vietnamese athletes' opportunities in athletics at ASIAD.

"My bronze proved that athletes from Southeast Asia can compete with other athletes from across Asia," Huyen said.

"Athletics achieved a breakthrough at ASIAD this year and this proved that it was not a matter of small or big size. It showed how building a good training programme and talented athletes matter to our sport at the moment," said Le Quy Phuong, head of Viet Nam's sports delegation at ASIAD.

Rowing took sports supporters by surprise with two silver medals in the women's double scull and lightweight quadruple scull events, with four of six rowers making their debut in the continental games.

"The thing that makes us happy after winning medals at ASIAD is that more people know about us and our rowing club. We are very happy about that," said rower Tran Thi Sam.

Wrestling also won its first medal at ASIAD when 19-year-old Nguyen Thi Lua won a silver medal in the women's 48kg freestyle event.

Viet Nam's women's chess team ended with a bronze medal at the Asian Games after a loss yesterday to eventual gold-medal winner, China.

Sprinter Vu Thi Huong and her team-mates failed to finish in top three in the women's 4x100m relay.

Their time was 44.77 seconds.

Thailand won in 44.09, ahead of China (44.22 and Japan (44.41).

Viet Nam has won one gold, 17 silver and 15 bronze medals to rank 23rd on the medals table. — VNS

Asian Games Medals Tally

Country/territory	Gold	Silver	Bronze
1 China	197	117	98
2 South Korea	75	63	91
3 Japan	48	73	94
4 Iran	20	14	25
5 Kazakhstan	18	23	37
6 India	14	17	33
7 Chinese Taipei 13	16	38
8 Uzbekistan	11	22	23
9 Thailand	11	9	32
10 Malaysia	9	18	14
11 Hong Kong	8	15	17
12 North Korea	6	10	19
13 Saudi Arabia	5	3	5
14 Bahrain	5	0	4
15 Indonesia	4	9	13
16 Singapore	4	7	6
17 Kuwait	4	6	1
18 Qatar	4	5	6
19 Philippines	3	4	9
20 Pakistan	3	2	3
21 Mongolia	2	5	9
22 Jordan	2	2	2
23 Viet Nam	1	17	15
24 Kyrgyzstan	1	2	2
25 Macao	1	1	4
26 Bangladesh	1	1	1
27 Tajikistan	1	0	3
28 Syria	1	0	1
29 Myanmar	0	5	3
30 UAE	0	4	1

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Exhibition revels in diversity

The cultures and diversity of Southeast Asia are on display in a new
exhibition of lacquerware and Indonesian glass paintings entitled “A
Glimpse of Southeast Asia” that opens at the Vietnam Museum of Ethnology
in Hanoi.

The art of glass painting originated in
Europe but was introduced to Indonesia in the early 20th century by
the Dutch, flourished there during the 1930s. Artists paint on the
reverse side of the glass, with the first stroke on the glass seen in
the foreground of the image as paintings are viewed through the glass.

The new exhibition aimed to increase public understanding of the links
among Vietnamese ethnic groups and those of Southeast Asia as a whole,
which together form both a unity and a diversity of cultures, according
to museum director Vo Quang Trong.

In preparation for the exhibition, museum staff travelled throughout the region collecting objects and materials, added Vo.

"We were met with excitement and collaboration from cultural
institutions, museums, researchers, private collectors, and many people
who are keen to preserve their cultures," he said.

The
collections were particularly enriched by objects donated by Prof Kaneko
Kazushige from Japan , Prof Le Thanh Khoi from France , and Rosalia
Sciortino and O'ong Maryono from Italy . The resulting exhibition is
based on a Vietnamese-French project entitled Enhancement of Vietnamese
Museum's Heritage, organised by the French Embassy in Vietnam and
the Vietnam Academy of Social Sciences.

Since 2005,
French experts have participated in designing and giving professional
advice on exhibit space. They have also worked with the museum staff on
selecting objects, photographs and films, making suggestions, editing
texts and captions, shaping the catalogue and designing graphic forms,
said Christine Hemmet, curator of France 's Branly Museum .

A Glimpse on Southeast Asia also celebrates the occasion of the
museum's 15th anniversary and will run through October 5 of next year.
With the opening of the Kite Building , currently under
construction, the exhibition will be expanded to include costumes and
other exhibits on the religion, performing arts and social lives of the
region's ethnic groups./.

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Southeast Asian cultures on show

As many as 42 objects related to Southeast Asian cultures are on display
at an exhibition, which opened in Hanoi on October 4 in the presence
of the Swiss, French, Swedish and Indonesian diplomatic corps in Hanoi.

The exhibition, “A glimpse of South East
Asia”, which presents costumes, lacquer art and Indonesian tribal art
paintings on glass, is part of a Southeast Asia Corner project, a
virtual museum on the regional cultures.

The project aims to enrich public knowledge of the diverse and vibrant Southeast Asian culture.

It is also expected to help visitors discover the similarity and
difference between nations in the region, said organisers from the
Vietnam Ethonology Museum , which will house the Southeast Asian
Corner.

Since 2006, the museum has collected over
2,000 objects, 8,000 documentary pictures and more than 30 video tapes
from the other nine members of the Southeast Asian Nations, namely
Thailand, Cambodia, Indonesia, the Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei,
Singapore, Laos and Myanmar.

Under the project, a
building called “Kite” is now under construction to showcase fabrics and
costumes, daily life, social life, performance art and religion of the
regional countries.

The Head of the Southeast
Asian Section, Dr. Vi Van An, said the collection has highlighted the
traditional weaving technology with special techniques and products
popular not only in the region but also in Europe .

He cited two Gadang costumes of tribes living in north of the Philippines .

Also worth of notes are nine lacquer-painted objects of Myanmar , including those dating back hundreds of years.

“A Glimpse of Southeast Asia” exhibition will last until November 5, 2011./.

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