SEA Games 2025: History made as Vietnamese runner Nguyen Thi Oanh clinches 14th gold

BANGKOK – History was made on Dec 15 at the Suphachalasai National Stadium when a new queen of the track at the SEA Games was crowned.

Vietnamese middle-distance runner Nguyen Thi Oanh crossed the finishing line first in the women’s 10,000m in 34min 27.93sec to become the most successful track-only athlete in the biennial event. Compatriot Le Thi Tuyet was second in 34:35.26 with Indonesia’s Odekta Elvina Naibaho taking bronze (35:33.23).

But no one could have guessed the magnitude of her achievement.

And having lapped several competitors, Oanh appeared as though she could effortlessly run another 10,000m.

Oanh’s triumph meant the 30-year-old had won a 14th gold medal from five consecutive SEA Games from 2017 to 2025, to overtake compatriot Nguyen Thi Huyen, the former “hurdles queen” of Vietnam, as the athlete with most gold medals from the track at the Games.

Huyen retired from the sport in 2023.

There have been other regional athletics stars who have amassed more golds than Oanh, such as the Philippines’ Elma Muros and Jennifer Tin Lay of Myanmar, who both won 15 golds. But they competed either in field events or a combination of track and field disciplines.

Oanh had tied Huyen’s 13-gold record with victory in the women’s 5,000m on Dec 13. And she will get the opportunity to add to her legacy and gold medal haul when she contests the 3,000m steeplechase on Dec 16.

Oanh was similarly stoic in the mixed zone as she spoke to a media scrum of Vietnamese and Thai media.

She said: “This victory is significant because I have achieved the results in the two events I have competed in Thailand so far.

“I still have my third event to compete in, so I have to focus on that. The two gold medals in the two events I have competed in give me more motivation to conquer the next result.”

When asked about the historical significance of her win, Oanh said: “As athletes, we always have goals and always strive for even better results. I myself am working hard to achieve these goals in the events I will compete in.

“I hope that luck will continue to smile upon me.”

Born in 1995 in the northern Vietnamese province of Bac Giang, about 50 kilometres from Hanoi, Oanh, the seventh of eight sisters in a farming family developed a love for running in her early teens and, at the age of 15, was offered the opportunity to join the provincial athletics team.

At 17, she was called up to the national track and field team. About a year later, she made her Games debut at the 2013 edition in Myanmar, where she won a silver in the women’s 3,000m steeplechase.

But it was not smooth sailing after that, as an illness threatened to abruptly end her track career.

In an interview published in the official Vietnam Government portal, Oanh said that the period between the end of 2014 and almost all of 2015 “plunged me into a state of crisis and felt like the end of my career”. She detailed that she had discovered she had glomerulonephritis – a type of kidney disease – which prevented her from continuing to train and compete.

She was forced to miss the 2015 Games in Singapore but returned to the national athletics team in early 2016.

A year later, she won her first Games golds in Kuala Lumpur, where she triumphed in the 1,500m and 5,000m. Since then, both figuratively and literally, she has never looked back, consistently dominating her disciplines across the region.

Still the golden girl for her country in athletics, Oanh has no doubt that “sports has changed my life”.

In a speech delivered in June at the Department of Physical Education and Sports in Vietnam, she added: “It has helped me become more resilient, more confident and more determined. It has helped me dare to face difficulties and challenges. There is no path paved with roses and I hope that young people will always persevere, be courageous and break through on their path.

“Dare to dream, dare to aspire and dare to conquer.”

Oanh has certainly lived by the motto she preaches.