Top Vietnamese swimmer Nguyen Thi Anh Vien overcame two US swimming stars, Becca Mann and Katie Ledecky, to claim the silver medal in the women’s 400m individual medley event at the ongoing Arena Pro Swim Series 2016 in Orlando, Florida on March 4. 

Vietnam's premier swimmer Nguyen Thi Anh Vien

Along with coursing through the preliminary round in third place clocking 4:42.76, Vien performed outstandingly in the finals, finishing second with a time of 4:39.64, 2.82 seconds slower than the US gold medalist Maya DiRado.

Mann and Ledecky ended up in third and fourth positions with respective times of 4:40.44 and 4:40.95. Ledecky won five world gold medals in 2015, which made her loss to the Vietnamese swimmer one of the biggest surprises on the first day of the tournament.

Vien also competed in the 200m freestyle and finished fourth overall with a time of 2:1.69, a worse result than her performance at the 28th Southeast Asian Games in Singapore last year (1:59.27).

The silver medal won in the US is expected to give a strong boost to Vien’s confidence, encouraging her to continue performing well in the remaining days of competition as well as during her preparation for the upcoming Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

The Arena Pro Swim Series is a system of leading large-scale competitions in the US. It features eight different tournaments, with the Orlando event being the third this year, following those in Minneapolis and Austin.

(Source: NDO)