Nguyen Van Long waiting for the day to compete with runner Kenya
Victor Chepkwony, 26 years old, Kenyan will participate in the MetaSports Marathon Imperial Hue 2023 on April 16. He has a PR (best record) of 2 hours 19 minutes at 42km - not outstanding in his hometown but superior to current Vietnamese runners. Victor Chepkwony is considered the number one candidate for the championship, like his compatriot Ezikiel Kemboi who performed at the MetaSports Marathon Ho Chi Minh City Midnight 2 months ago.
According to Nguyen Van Long, Victor Chepkwony's appearance at VM Hue is welcome. This shows that the organizers are building a large, high-quality and attention-grabbing marathon system. Large-scale tournaments have begun to attract many international runners to compete and are expected to continue to increase in the future. Competing with competitors from the running powerhouse is very difficult, but sooner or later, facing the current pace of marathon development.
"Rubbing with strong running legs brings many lessons for domestic runners, especially the championship competition is no longer easy. I believe in the long run the achievements of Vietnamese people will increase when they have high goals. more and pay more attention to exercise and nutrition," shared Nguyen Van Long.
In addition to competing at VM Hue, Chepkwony will spend a few days in Vietnam participating in exchanges and sharing experiences with Vietnamese runners. Nguyen Van Long is a professional connection and companion. Chepkwony had never been to Vietnam before. He expressed his eagerness, looking forward to the opportunity to discover culture, people, and experience interesting activities.
In the group of domestic runners, Nguyen Van Long highly appreciates Dan Quyet. He looks forward to the day of competing with these two names. Van Long has just won the movement system of the National Marathon with a record of 2 hours and 44 minutes, completing the race in Binh Thuan after 2 hours and 43 minutes a week later. He worked hard to improve this achievement. "Hue has good competition conditions. The road is flat, long, there are not many quick turns, especially in the last kilometers. This is the easiest place to set up PR in the VM system," said Nguyen Van Long.
Nguyen Van Long came to jogging quite late. He joined the Gia Lai track and field team in 2005, when he was 20 years old. After that, Long moved to Can Tho and Dong Nai before leaving the national team in 2021. He won the 42km national championship twice in 2009, 2011. Three times in a row the 21km national champion in 2011, 2012, 2013. The best results are 2 hours 29 minutes at 42km and 1 hour and 8 minutes at 21km. Hue is the place where the runner set a record of 21km 11 years ago. In 2022, Nguyen Van Long ran across Vietnam 2,656km in 34 days.
MetaSports Marathon Imperial Hue taking place on April 16 is the third time the tournament has come to the ancient capital. This year, the tournament is twice the size of 2022 with 10,000 runners. The top runners all plan to participate because the track is beautiful, flat, easy to PR. In 2022, Bui The Anh was crowned champion after 2 hours and 34 minutes - the best achievement of the MetaSports Marathon system of the year.
