Vietnam at the Olympics: A Brief History
From: ryan nelson <sociolgst@yahoo.com>
Date: 2008/8/16
To: vsg@u.washington.edu
Having collected on day two their first – and most likely only – medal of the 2008 Summer Olympic Games the Vietnamese now count only two in their nation’s history. Hoang Anh Tuan’s silver medal winning weightlifting performance in the men’s 56 kg weight class an accomplishment hopefully not diminished in the eyes of his countrypeople considering the gold medalist, seventeen-year-old Long Qingquan, resides within the boundaries of historical rival China. Hoang’s accomplishment broke a podium drought stretching back to the 2000 Sydney Olympics, where “pride of the country” Tran Hieu Ngan won for her nation its first medal, silver in the women’s 57 kg Taekwondo competition. Interestingly, the summer Sydney Olympics also marked the first time Vietnamese Americans made up a portion of the U.S. team. All three being table tennis players.
According to the information available, the Socialist Republic’s Beijing delegation of 21 athletes is the largest since the original 30 member team at the 1980 Games at Moscow and is flavored with everyone from shooters to swimmers, badmintonists (yes, that’s a word) to a now banned substance consuming gymnast. An irony about the 1980 Games, in 1979 – the same year the U.S.S.R. invaded Afghanistan – Soviet officials rattled political rhetoric in the direction of China: calling for the removal of China from the Moscow Games because of their invasion of Vietnam.
Making a political statement of their own most followers of the Olympics are aware the U.S. led a boycott of the Games in 1980 due to the Soviet’s invasion of Afghanistan. Had ally China not been repulsed after a bloody fight from Vietnam many months before the July 1980 opening ceremony the author doubts the invasion and occupation would have been cited by Carter as further justification to boycott. His administration after all contributed $40 million to the Khmer Rouge regime.
Though made with good intentions the decision to boycott still tarnishes the Carter administration’s legacy. It also provides a perfect lesson on why countries should not boycott the Games. The unfair penalty deprived hundreds of athletes the opportunity to realize hopes, dreams and glories on the most sought stage known some have trained arduously almost their entire lives to experience and bring home. What contributed to President Carter’s poor boycott decision? He had participated in a back room psychotropic black light fiddling session with the Allman Brothers and Willie Nelson twenty minutes prior.
Not too long ago in a televised interview a 1980 boycott year U.S. Olympic caliber track athlete provided some reflective and skeptical comments about the boycott. Amongst them, “We boycotted the games over the Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan. Now we (the U.S. military) occupy that same country.” [Shaking his head in disbelief]
Regarding Vietnam’s Summer Olympic history, the first attendance by the country the 1952 Helsinki Olympic team under the flag of South Vietnam takes credit – a delegation of eight males: four cyclists, a swimmer, a fencer, a boxer, and a long distance runner. At the 1956 Melbourne Olympics the Republic fielded a squad of all male cyclists. Four years later male swimmers Phan Huu Dong and Truong Ke Nhon joined male fencer Tran Van Xuan in Rome to represent their state as athletes. An all male Olympic team accentuated by three swimmers, two athletes, six cyclists, three judoists, and two fencers attended the 1964 Tokyo Games. The year of podium Black Power salutes, 1968, nine of the Republic’s male and female athletes graced Mexico City with their presence -- two cyclists (one being 16 years old), three shootists, a decathlete, two female swimmers, and a fencer. The 1972 Munich Olympics, the last for South Vietnam, saw the Republic bring only two contestants, both being male shootists. Ho Minh Thu, competitor in Mixed Free Pistols (50m), had the privilege of bearing his nation’s flag at the opening ceremony.
Details on the reasoning behind no athletes having participated in 1976 have been difficult to obtain. For reasons most likely related to the building of their nation and North Vietnam having never fielded an Olympic team Vietnam did not attend (Does anyone have comments or have knowledge pertaining to the post 1975 fate of South Vietnam’s Olympic athletes? Did they leave the country?).
A Soviet led revenge boycott of the 1984 Games in Los Angeles explains their absence in 1984.
Of Vietnam’s Olympic teams none has displayed such depth than the 1980 Moscow Games contingent. Despite being 30 members strong (22 males and 8 females -- eleven swimmers, seven shootists, two jumpers, five runners, and five wrestlers), like those who competed for Vietnam prior, all failed to place near medal contention. None of the nine athletes (8 men and 1 woman -- two swimmers (one female), two boxers, one cyclist, one wrestler, one shootist, and two runners) who competed at the 1988 Seoul Olympics are credited with being close to the world’s best. An explanation for the over two-thirds drop off of Olympic team membership from 1984 to 1988 the author does not have.
For the first time in Vietnamese Olympic history on the 1992 Barcelona Games team women outnumbered men. In feats deserving of mention female swimmers Nguyen Kieu Oanh (whom peaked at Seoul with 27th and 34th place finishes) and Nguyen Thi Phuong had times fast enough to be ranked among the top 50 in the world. Nguyen Kieu proficient in the 100 and 200 m. butterfly and Nguyen Thi ranked 38th after the women’s 100 m. butterfly.
15-year-old Vo Tran Truong An accompanied a team of six (3 women and 3 men – two swimmers, one judoist, one shootist, one runner, and one hurdler) to the Games of 1996. Thanks to Vo’s youth this marked back to back Vietnamese Olympic teams having a female swimmers under the age of 16 (Nguyen Kieu being the other). The flag bearer for Vietnam in Atlanta was Huu Huy Nguyen (a little help please, anyone, on who this person is).
The first athlete in Vietnamese history to bring home an Olympic medal Tran Hieu Ngan takes honor. Her emotions running high after receiving her 2000 Sydney Games Taekwondo silver medal, Tran Hieu Ngan commented recently on the moment, “I remember that I couldn’t stop crying and said nothing except: ‘This victory is for all Vietnamese people.’” With Tran a collection of four women and three men – two swimmers, two taekwondoists, a hurdler, a sprinter, and a shootist competed.
With a taste for Olympic possibility the most diverse Vietnamese delegation (five women and six men – one canoeist, a table tennis player, two rowers, a runner, a swimmer, a shootist, two taekwondoists, a weightlifter, and a high jumper) arrived at the 2004 Athens Games.
On every Vietnamese Olympic team but two at least one swimmer has been present. The warm seasonal weather throughout most of the country and the population’s accessibility to rivers, lakes, and ocean (assuming they’re not too polluted) perhaps an explanation to this watercentric sport trend. The author can only hope many Vietnamese youths have been viewing Michael Phelps in the pool over the last week impressionably (Esp. the men’s 4 x 100 free relay; truly the greatest relay race ever; perhaps the most exciting race -- relay or other -- of all time. Congrats, Michael, on being the greatest athlete ever.). The positive and epic shock waves Michael has created for the sport so profound he hopes will inspire in the not too distant future more Vietnamese to sport Speedos, voracious appetites, and locks of unhealthy, chlorine destroyed hair.
Of note, an answer to the shortage of Vietnamese athletes at the Olympic Games Culture and Customs of Vietnam (McLeod et al 2001: 165-6) supplies when they cite “a shortage of available urban space.” Whether or not the reward of 2,500-5,000 dollars offered by the government to athletes who win medals will encourage Olympic performance and participation time will tell.
Lastly, the author imagines Henry Kissinger had a fantastic time last Saturday watching from his seat in the Water Cube the ‘American Shark’ Michael Phelps destroy with unprecedented power, versatility and endurance his own world record in the 400 m individual medley. He wonders what degree of pull a grumbly voiced war criminal like Kissinger has when it comes to gaining access to seats at the Water Cube.
Peace
Go Phelps! Go USA Swimming!
Ryan Nelson
----------
From: dfp <mail@aryador.de>
Date: 2008/8/21
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Just one short remark:
The "official" number of 21 athletes is wrong. Vietnamese media apparently include the 7 athletes who will compete at the Wushu-tournament. Wushu is not an official Olympic competition. It is not even a so-called "demonstration"-competition. This reduces the Vietnamese team to 13.
You can find a complete list here:
http://english.vietnamnet.vn/sports/2008/08/797303/
China wanted to include Wushu, but the IOC did not grant that wish (in 2005 already). What takes place now is a "Beijing 2008 Wushu Tournaments hosted by the Beijing Organizing Committee for the Games of the XXIX Olympiad (BOCOG)". Very creative title to disguise the fact that it is not an official part of the Olympics.
Vietnamese media is either not aware of that fact, or it did not consider this "minor detail" important.
The team of 13 members is still the largest one since Moscow 1980.
David,
Hanoi
----------
From: jkirk <jkirk@spro.net>
Date: 2008/8/21
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Well heck--how annoying that network news MSNBC won't broadast anything from these competitions, instead we have to look at endless diving, swimming and beach-ball contests :( would much rather watch wushu than any other sport.........and suspect am not alone.
Joanna K.
----------
From: Nora Taylor <nthanoi04@yahoo.com>
Date: Thu, Aug 21, 2008 at 6:30 PM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
If you haven't figured it out already, the Olympics are about patriotism and the coverage you get in the US will be about American athletes, in France, French athletes etc...You can watch a lot of coverage on hispanic channels. I was in Switzerland recently and, aside from heavy reports on Roger Federer, it was fairly unbiased. My daughters and I watched badminton and handball for example. And we also caught the Thai female weightlifter win a gold. Thank god for Swiss neutrality. I suspect that you can find coverage of any sport on You Tube.
Nora
Nora Annesley Taylor,PhD
Alsdorf Professor of South and Southeast Asian Art
School of the Art Institute of Chicago
----------
From: George Dutton <dutton@humnet.ucla.edu>
Date: Thu, Aug 21, 2008 at 7:45 PM
To: nthanoi04@yahoo.com, Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
While it may be too late to catch any other Vietnamese athletes this way (unless some are still in the running in table tennis), NBC actually streams live (as well as taped) coverage of virtually every sport, from the obscure to the ridiculous via its website NBCOlympics.com. You need to download the media player, but once you do you can have fairly high resolution coverage of all sorts of events, interrupted only briefly by commercials. I got hooked on archery and watched it all the way through to the finals. It is a terrific departure from the sound-bite coverage seen on prime time, and does allow you to see sports in which Southeast Asian competitors have a chance (judo, badminton, table tennis, etc).
George
________________________________
George Dutton
Chair, Southeast Asian Studies IDP
Associate Professor
UCLA Department of Asian Languages and Cultures
----------
From: ryan nelson <sociolgst@yahoo.com>
Date: 2008/8/21
To: vsg@u.washington.edu
NBCOlympics.com offers quality, live streaming feeds of competitions not televised in the U.S. It may not offer what everyone’s looking for all the time (or at all for wushuaphiles), but it does offer less mainstream, non U.S. participant heavy events. Never thought archery between S. Korea and China or Greco Roman wresting between two brightly colored spandex clad men with unibrows could be so intriguing at 3 a.m.
NBCOlympics.com
Click on the blue "Video" tab near the top
Click on "Live Competition" on the left side of the screen.
To see Viet Nam’s Hoang Anh Tuan capture the silver medal in competition view the “Men’s 56kg Group A” at <http://www.nbcolympics.com/weightlifting/video/all/index.html>
(Move the video ahead about 1 hour and 50 minutes to view the competition’s finale)
To view Tuan’s silver medal ceremony view <http://www.nbcolympics.com/weightlifting/video/all/index,page=3.htmx>
Considering Tuan’s superior, Chinese gold medalist Long Qingquan, is 17-years-old (a requirement of at least 17-years-old has been imposed on weightlifters at the Olympics), perhaps (snicker snicker) a double check of his age by the I.O.C. would be appropriate.
Peace
Ryan Nelson