Female student with dream of becoming a tour guide and Taekwondo gold medal

Athlete Nguyen Thi Thu Hoai and her teammates are practicing difficult movements in Taekwondo. Photo: Duc Anh

At the Provincial Sports Training and Competition Center, we met a girl with a slim body and ideal height (over 1.70m), her name is Nguyen Thi Thu Hoai. She is being instructed by Taekwondo coaches in the spinning kick movements, which she performs quite skillfully and beautifully.

Hoai has just returned from the National Taekwondo Youth Tournament, which gathered 42 provinces and cities with 1,400 athletes. She participated in the women's 49 kg category. To win this precious gold medal, Hoai had to win all 4 matches. Nguyen Thi Thu Hoai said: "In the last tournament, I had to face very strong opponents. I had to try very hard to overcome them. The match that impressed me the most was the bronze medal match. Because this was my most difficult match so far. My opponent was a very strong athlete, this athlete won the Taekwondo Youth Championship last year. Before entering the match, everyone said that it would be difficult for me to overcome my opponent, because my opponent had both technique and experience. However, with the encouragement of the coaching staff, I won."

In the final match, with a relaxed mentality, Hoai had an important victory to bring home the Taekwondo gold medal for his team. Photo: Duc Anh

However, with the spirit that had been trained before, in the following matches Hoai regained his composure and played effectively against his opponent.

To win this match, Hoai used her signature moves, such as blocking and kicking, keeping her distance from her opponent, making it impossible for her to approach. With her smart play, Nguyen Thi Thu Hoai won the match.
In the final match, with a relaxed mentality, Hoai had an important victory to bring home the precious gold medal for the home team.

Nguyen Thi Thu Hoai is 19 years old this year, she was born in Nghi Hoa commune, Nghi Loc district. Ever since her secondary school days, Hoai has loved sports. Hoai said: “Since I was little, I loved playing sports, especially martial arts. At that time, both my parents loved martial arts, whenever there was a martial arts competition on TV, the whole family would sit together to watch, it was so much fun.”

The coach saw that Hoai was a promising person because he was tall, agile and had the qualities to become a Taekwondo athlete. Photo: Duc Anh

When he was in 9th grade, he realized that Hoai was suitable for Taekwondo, so his physical education teacher introduced him to coach Dau Dinh Hung, head of the Taekwondo department at the Provincial Sports Training and Competition Center.

Hoai confided: "Being in a Taekwondo class is not only my dream but also the joy of my whole family."
The first days of coming to Taekwondo class were really difficult, being far from home, having to take care of herself all by herself made Hoai sometimes discouraged.

Hoai shared: “The first days were very difficult for me. At home, I was the most pampered person, my parents always took care of me. But when I came to the center, I had to do everything by myself, from eating, resting, studying, washing, everything by myself.”

In such a difficult life, training is also full of thorns. The first days of training are the most difficult days for Hoai. Hoai said: "Practicing to improve endurance is the most difficult. Therefore, every day we have to run a lot, there are days when we are so tired from running that we can't eat and just want to lie down. When we start practicing the first movements of Taekwondo, there are also many challenges. Flexibility is an important movement of this subject. Therefore, I had to put in a lot of effort to be able to do that movement well."

But with determination and passion, Hoai overcame everything. With the goal of winning medals in the future, all fatigue and difficulties disappeared in Hoai.

At the end of 2016, Hoai won the bronze medal of the 3-region tournament. This was the first medal in Hoai's journey to conquer martial arts. Then in 2017, she excellently won the gold medal of the cup, the silver medal of the youth tournament and the silver medal of the regional tournament. Following the successes of 2019, she won the gold medal of the team at the cup tournament, the bronze medal of the national championship. And in 2020, Hoai surpassed herself to stand on the highest podium to win the gold medal of the youth Taekwondo tournament.

For Hoai, she is an athlete at her peak, but to prepare for the future, she chose to study at another school, the College of Tourism. Hoai said: “Since I was little, I have loved to travel and explore new horizons, so I really wanted to become a tour guide. Because of those dreams, after finishing high school, I decided to take the exam to enter the College of Tourism. The difficulty for me was that in my martial arts class, no one took the exam to enter the same school as me. Most of the girls took the exam to enter the school of physical education, sports or kindergarten, so when I encountered obstacles in my studies, I had to find out for myself to overcome them.”

Nguyen Thi Thu Hoai is a promising Taekwondo athlete of Nghe An. Photo: Duc Anh