VietNamNet Bridge – The country's top athletes will be eating well in March thanks to a doubling in their daily food allowance ahead of the Beijing Olympics.

Taekwondo martial artists Nguyen Van Hung.

At national sports centre 1 in Nhon town, just outside Hanoi, 50 Olympic hopefuls began receiving their VND120,000 daily stipend yesterday.

The centre is taking steps to ensure athletes eat healthily to ensure they are peak condition for the games.

"Although there have been recent price surges, the centre is trying to ensure that athletes eat nutritious foods to keep up their fitness levels," said head of nutrition at the centre, Nguyen Thi Duc.

Last year, the Viet Nam Olympic Committee (VOC) implemented a special nutrition programme for the country's top 80 athletes. But certain athletes, such as weightlifters require specialist foods.

The first three Olympic berths were won by taekwondo martial artists Nguyen Van Hung in the men's over-80kg category, who is world champion and five-time SEA Games winner; Hoang Ha Giang, who triumphed at the recent World Youth Taekwondo Championship; and Nguyen Thi Hoai Thu in the women's 49kg and 57kg classes.

Sprinter Vu Thi Huong, who recorded a 100m time of 11.47 seconds in the Southeast Asian Games last December; Truong Thanh Hang and high jumper Bui Thi Nhung will also be going to Beijing Olympics qualifying.

SEA Games' 100m breast-stroke winner Nguyen Huu Viet, who is currently training in China, and the only Vietnamese swimmer to compete in the Athens Olympics in 2004, will also be competing in this year's Olympics qualifiers.

During VOC's meeting last October, vice chairman and general secretary Hoang Vinh Giang said Vietnam planned to send a squad of between 20 to 30 athletes to Beijing in the hope of bringing home at least three medals.

Vice chairman and general secretary of the Viet Nam Taekwondo Federation, Truong Ngoc De, said the VOC could only invest its limited resources in the country's most talented athletes.

"We have estimated that with four taekwondo athletes taking part in Beijing, the federation needs close to US$500,000 in training expenses for the quartet," said De, who was at the helm during Tran Hieu Ngan's successful silver medal bid at the Sydney Olympics eight years ago.

Vietnam made its Olympic debut in the 1980 Moscow Games, but the country had to wait 20 long years to win its first medal - the silver won by Ngan in the women's 57kg weight category.

The Athens Olympics, where Vietnam sent just 11 athletes, failed to see any of the squad reach the podium in any of the sports they competed in, which included shooting, canoeing, table tennis, taekwondo, weightlifting and athletics.

(Source: Viet Nam News)