Vietnamese combat engineers advance to International Army Games finals

They will now face Russia, Uzbekistan and Belarus in the finals to be held in Tyumen City on Sunday, Vietnam People's Army news website reported.

The Vietnamese combat engineers performed tasks like traversing bridges and walls, defusing mines and removing obstacles. Their performance was considered the best among all combat engineers from other countries, said Nguyen Hong Giang, head of the Vietnamese combat engineer team.

This is the first time Vietnamese combat engineers are participating in the International Army Games.

Vietnamese snipers had entered the second round at the tournament after finishing the first round in 7th place.

The contests for snipers and combat engineers are two out of 24 competitions in the International Army Games 2019 organized by the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation between August 3-17.

This year, the event has attracted over 6,000 military athletes in 223 teams from 39 countries from Europe, Asia, Africa, Central and Latin America.

The competitions are being held in 10 Eurasian countries: Azerbaijan, Armenia, Belarus, China, India, Iran, Kazakhstan, Mongolia, Russia and Uzbekistan.

This is the second year Vietnam has sent a delegation to the event, with 125 officers and soldiers in total.

Eight Vietnamese teams are competing in eight disciplines: tank crew, medical staff, food service specialists, emergency rescue personnel, literary/art and dancing contestants, snipers, combat engineers and chemical reconnaissance vehicle crew.

Last year, Vietnam competed in just three disciplines.