After Nguyen Huu Viet, Hoang Quy Phuoc is the second swimmer to have brought a gold medal for the Vietnamese national swimming team in the SEA Games arena. Although more than 10 years have passed, Da Nang’s talented swimmer still has not quenched his desire to stand on the top podium of the largest sports event in the region one more time.

Hoang Quy Phuoc is training hard to get the best results at the upcoming SEA Games 31. Photo: N.K

On November 13, 2011, Vietnamese swimming star Hoang Quy Phuoc set a new SEA Games record in the men’s 100m butterfly in a time of 53.07 seconds, smashing the previous record of 53.82 seconds set by Indonesian Daniel Bego in Laos two years ago and breaking the national record of 53.56 seconds.

Phuoc’s swimming talent was discovered in a local swimming competition when he was only 11 years old. Since then, he was trained professionally. Possessing the ideal body of a swimmer, Phuoc seems to be born only to conquer the “green race”. Till date, he has been in the Vietnamese national swimming team for 15 years.

Born in 1993, Quy Phuoc is the eldest member in the Vietnamese national swimming team. Despite his age, Phuoc is still training hard in a bid to improve his performances and set a shining example for younger swimmers to follow.

“I’m no longer young, and I had a shoulder injury because of participating in many international swimming tournaments, so my performance is no longer the same in the past. Therefore, I have to try harder to keep up with my younger teammates" said Phuoc.

In fact, aside from Hoang Quy Phuoc, there is no swimmer capable of competing for gold medal in the men’s butterfly and short freestyle events. Partly because of the great shadow of Joseph Schooling (Singapore) and even if the Rio Olympic champion did not have a high performance, the Singapore team was still with Quah Zheng Wen who won 6 SEA Games gold medals.

In the last three SEA Games, the Vietnamese national swimming team have finished second, which is considered as a great success of Vietnamese swimmers.

The main reasons are thought to be that the Singapore swimming team are still too strong compared to the rest of Southeast Asia. In addition, such countries as Malaysia, Thailand, the Philippines and Indonesia began investing heavily in swimming in recent years.

Therefore, the city’s star swimmer has to work harder to realise his dream of bringing a SEA Games gold medal to his hometown. It's high time for him to take a spectacular breakout for his final regional sports event.

Currently, Quy Phuoc and 8 other members of the Vietnamese national swimming team are being trained in Hungary.

Vietnamese swimmers have already participated in the Spring BVSC Cup 2022 and were tested in many swimming events with the aim of checking their performances to perfect the tactical intentions in preparation for the upcoming SEA Games 31 which is slated for next May in Viet Nam.

Reporting by NAM KHANG - Translating by M.DUNG