Vietnam finished in the top spot at the HCM City Open International Track and Field Tournament with eight gold medals.

In the three-day event that wrapped up at the Thong Nhat Stadium indistrict 10 on August 4, Indonesia came in second with seven gold, foursilver, and four bronze medals.

The Republic of Korea came third with three golds.

On the final day Nguyen Thi Thanh Phuc set a new national record of22min 53.75sec in the women's 5,000m walk, beating her own mark of25:00.12 that she set at the same tournament two years ago.

It was the second national record to fall at the tournament afterNguyen Thanh Ngung's mark in the men's 10,000 walk on August 3.

In the men's 400m hurdles, international star Vu Van Tinh equalled thetime set by the 2009 Southeast Asia (SEA) Games gold medallist of52.49sec.

Bac Giang's Pham Tien San in the men's 3,000msteeplechase and Army's Cao Thi Hang in the women's 100m appeared to begood medal prospects for this year's SEA Games in Indonesia .

The rest of the competition was nothing to write home about, especiallyin the absence of the reigning Asian Athletics Championship 800m goldmedallist Truong Thanh Hang and Asian Games 200m silver medallist Vu ThiHuong.

Hang is training in China while Huong is recovering from an injury.

Duong Thi Viet Anh, a big hope in the women's high jump in Indonesialater this year, failed to reach 1.88m, a height that won her a silvermedal at the SEA Games two years ago.

She predicted that anyone clearing 1.88m would win gold in Indonesia .

Of the cities and provinces that sent teams to the competition, NamDinh topped with four golds, Khanh Hoa picked up three golds and hostHCM City won two golds.

Several events did not attract foreign entries and the provincial athletes went up only against each other. /.