    |
 |
|
Vietnamese Chemical Team at the opening ceremony |
This year's event is attracting the attention of many people in Kostroma city and Yaroslav province, especially the Vietnamese community in Russia, and Vietnamese students at Marshal S. Timoshenko Radiological, Chemical and Biological Defense and Engineer Troops College. Their support has created additional motivation for Vietnamese chemical troops in the competition.
In the “Safe environment” category, reconnaissance crews have to compete in three stages, such as “Individual race,” “Range practice,” and “Relay race.”
During the “Individual Race” stage, the first crew used BTR-80 vehicles specializing in nuclear and biochemical reconnaissance to overcome obstacles deployed on the 5.5 km racetrack. The contest aims to check the skills and smooth coordination of the crews when performing missions on the actual competition.
After completing the challenges with BTR-80 vehicles, the second vehicle's crew immediately starts to overcome a 550-meter long road with many difficult and high-risk obstacles such as walking along a thin wire or rope across a river or keeping balance over a bridge.
Especially, in the “Safe environment” contest, all participants must carry equipment and gas masks, causing more difficulties for chemical troops to perform their missions that require high speed and precision.
BTR-80 vehicles of the VPA’s chemical team are painted blue. The team competed in the second and fourth round with its rivals from China and Russia. According to regulations of the Army Games 2020, each team randomly selects 3 BTR-80 vehicles and is allowed to use 2 vehicles with better technical conditions during the competition.
In the first round, the Vietnamese crew had a relatively favorable start when chasing the Chinese team's vehicle. However, when entering the second round, the Vietnamese team’s vehicle had an unexpected incident, forcing it to continue the race with another vehicle.
|
|
 |
|
Vietnamese team in the competition |
In the next round, the Vietnamese chemical team had more bad luck as its vehicle with the best technical condition could not start. The unexpected technical problems ended up costing the VPA's Chemical team a lot of time.
At the end of the first day of competition, the Russian team ranks first, followed by the team from Belarus. China, the defending champion of the competition, currently ranks 4th.
Though the results of the contest were not as good as expected, the Vietnamese chemical athletes showed a strong combat spirit to overcome all difficulties and challenges to complete their missions.
Translated by Lam Anh