His Royal Highness Prince Hj
Sufri Bolkiah (R), the President
of the Brunei Darussalam National
Olympic Council (BNOC), watching
the SEA Games shorinji kempo
competition in Jakarta yesterday.
Picture: BT/ Jason Thomas

A flurry of gold medals catapulted Vietnam into second place in the medals table at the 26th Southeast Asian (SEA) Games yesterday as Thailand's momentum stalled and hosts Indonesia endured a relatively quiet day.

Buoyed by a near clean sweep of the gymnastics on Tuesday, Vietnam's athletes had notched 10 gold medals by Wednesday evening taking their tally to 54 victories and 168 medals overall, edging ahead of the fancied Thai team who had 52 wins.

Vietnam's victories were scattered across several events, with braces of gold medals in chess and rowing adding to wins in the shooting and vovinam a Vietnamese martial art making its Games debut.

The success nudged Vietnam ahead of Thailand, who could only muster three gold, after bouncing back from a disappointing start to the 26th SEA Games with a strong showing in the headline athletics events.

Indonesia, who earlier claimed their 200th medal of the Games, had a slow day after a contagious gold run over the first five days of competition, but still secured nine gold to keep them in top spot in the medals table with 87 first places.

Courtesy from Brunei Times