Psychological characteristics of athletes on the Vietnamese national weightlifting team prior to the 2019 Asian Championships: a cross-sectional descriptive study.

This cross-sectional descriptive study was conducted to evaluate the psychological characteristics of athletes in the Vietnamese National Weightlifting Team prior to the 2019 Asian Championships. The study participants included 17 elite athletes (9 males and 8 females) from the Vietnamese National Weightlifting Team. Standardized psychometric and specialized assessment instruments-including the Competitive Anxiety Inventory (CAH), Profile of Emotional States (PET), Sport Competition Anxiety Test (SCAT), and Psychological Reliability Assessment tests-were administered to assess health status, emotional states, competitive anxiety, and psychological stability. Given the cross-sectional nature of the dataset, the findings reflect specific pre-competition psychological states during that historical training macrocycle rather than a real-time profile of the current roster. The results indicated that the participants exhibited varying levels of pre-competition psychological activation; while general health status and positive emotional indicators showed stable baseline parameters, specific markers of competitive anxiety and emotional regulation varied among the athletes. Due to the limited sample size ( n = 17 ), sex-specific subgroup analyses yielded no statistically significant differences in primary anxiety and emotional variables ( p > 0.05 ). These insights highlight the necessity of individualized psychological monitoring in elite weightlifting and provide a foundational baseline and methodological reference point for future longitudinal and cross-national investigations in strength sports.