Female volleyball player from Nghe An shines in international tournaments

Fate with volleyball

Born in 2002, Vi Thi Nhu Quynh is the eldest child in a Thai ethnic farming family in Tam Dinh commune (Tuong Duong). Like many other boys and girls in the mountains, Quynh's primary school years passed peacefully as she went to school and helped her parents with housework and farming.

In 6th grade, Vi Thi Nhu Quynh started to learn about volleyball when she followed her grandfather to watch a match at the village cultural house. And Quynh's grandfather and the little girl herself did not expect that this was an important milestone when Quynh's ability to play volleyball was awakened. From then on, every afternoon, Quynh asked her parents to go to the field to play volleyball with her brothers, sisters, aunts and uncles in the village. Although she had just become familiar with this sport, the young girl played very skillfully and passionately.

In the following years, due to inheriting genes from her father who was nearly 1m80 tall, Quynh's height began to grow much taller than her peers. And her passion for volleyball and admiration for female players such as Pham Thi Kim Hue, Le Thanh Thuy, Nguyen Thu Hoai, Bui Thi Nga, Dang Thi Kim Thanh... made Nhu Quynh start thinking about becoming a professional athlete in this sport.

In early 2017, through the social network Facebook, Nhu Quynh learned that the Industrial and Commercial Bank football team was recruiting young players. After much thought, the 15-year-old girl of Thai ethnicity contacted the team's recruitment department. And the person Quynh met on the phone was coach Nguyen Thuy Oanh - a former famous setter of Vietnamese volleyball and at that time was in charge of youth training for the Industrial and Commercial Bank volleyball team.

Over the phone, when coach Thuy Oanh learned Quynh's age, she seemed hesitant. However, Quynh's rustic Nghe An accent and determination made the veteran coach decide to give her a chance.

Telling this story to her grandfather, Quynh immediately received his support. And thanks to him, Quynh's parents, although not wanting their daughter to leave home early, quickly agreed with her decision to pursue a career in sports. So after Tet 2017, Quynh and her grandfather packed up and went to Hanoi to take part in the selection test for the gifted class of the Industrial and Commercial Bank volleyball team. Although she was quite late to start playing volleyball, her physical strength, agility, and jumping ability helped the girl from the Western Nghe An region to be accepted.

Because she came to volleyball late, during training sessions, Vi Thi Nhu Quynh was carefully trained by coach Nguyen Thuy Oanh with separate exercises of quite high intensity. However, with her innate qualities and will to overcome difficulties, Quynh always tried her best in training sessions and caught up very quickly compared to her peers.

Initially, Quynh was assigned to the middle blocker position due to her limited height (now only 1m75 tall - PV). However, with the eyes of a long-time professional, coach Thuy Oanh realized that only in the main blocker position could Vi Thi Nhu Quynh fully develop her innate qualities, from jumping ability to very strong wrist strength. And this is what has contributed significantly to the Vietnamese women's volleyball team having an excellent young main blocker like today.

Steps forward

At the end of October 2019, at the age of 17, Vi Thi Nhu Quynh was tested in her first tournament, the 2019 National Youth Volleyball Championship. Although the youth team of the Industrial and Commercial Bank only ranked fourth overall, Vi Thi Nhu Quynh left a special impression on experts as one of the main strikers who scored the most points in the tournament.

In 2020, also at the National Youth Volleyball Championship, Vi Thi Nhu Quynh's high and powerful jumps and attacks stunned many teams. The Thai ethnic athlete was the one who scored the most points and won the title of best athlete of the tournament.

Also in 2020, at the National U23 Volleyball Championship, Vi Thi Nhu Quynh also played very well and together with her teammates defeated Thong tin - LienVietPostBank to win the championship. Impressive performances at youth tournaments helped Vi Thi Nhu Quynh get an official spot in the Cong Thuong Bank team to compete at the highest domestic playground of Vietnamese women's volleyball, the National Volleyball Championship. Although this tournament was continuously postponed and then canceled due to the Covid-19 epidemic, after the first rounds, Vi Thi Nhu Quynh also played very well in the main striker position.

In 2021, Vi Thi Nhu Quynh had a big turning point in her career when she decided to leave the Industrial and Commercial Bank to try her hand at the new team Than Quang Ninh. Although initially this transfer encountered conflicts and disputes, the parties later successfully negotiated an agreement, helping Vi Thi Nhu Quynh to play for the mining team.

Here, Nhu Quynh reunited with her old teacher, coach Nguyen Tuan Kiet. Under the guidance of this veteran coach, Vi Thi Nhu Quynh and her teammates achieved remarkable results, notably 3rd place at the 2021 National Championship.

In 2022, despite being one of the best young athletes in Vietnam, Vi Thi Nhu Quynh was not on the official list of registered players for the 31st SEA Games of the Vietnamese women's volleyball team under head coach Thai Thanh Tung. However, joy returned to this Thai female athlete after the 31st SEA Games when her teacher at Than Quang Ninh Nguyen Tuan Kiet became the head coach of the national team. Understanding the qualities of the student he had led since 2019, this coach did not hesitate to call Nhu Quynh up to the national team and in 2022, this young striker and the team won 4th place at the Asian Volleyball Cup and 2nd place at the ASEAN Grand Prix.

2023 can be said to be a year of great success for Vietnamese women's volleyball as well as Vi Thi Nhu Quynh personally. At the Asian Club Volleyball Cup in April, along with Thanh Thuy and Tu Linh, Nhu Quynh was the outstanding factor, contributing significantly when scoring 17 points, helping the Vietnamese team come back to defeat Diamond Food Club of Thailand 3-2 to win the championship. At the 32nd SEA Games in May, Nhu Quynh also played excellently to help the Vietnamese women's team win the Silver Medal.

In June 2023, in the final match of the Asian Women's Challenge Cup (AVC Challenge Cup) against Indonesia, coach Tuan Kiet sent Nhu Quynh on to replace Thanh Thuy from set 4 when Thanh Thuy was tired and this change contributed to creating a positive effect for the Vietnamese team. With her youthful strength, Nhu Quynh scored 11 points, helping the Vietnamese team beat Indonesia 3-2 to win a ticket to the FIVB Challenger Cup in France.

Then, in August 2023, at the SEA V.League Volleyball Tournament, after often playing as a reserve in the first team of the Vietnamese women's volleyball team, in the second leg of the SEA V.League 2023, Nhu Quynh played as a main player in the second team and the main striker of Than Quang Ninh really played excellently. With impressive performance in all 3 matches against Indonesia, Philippines and Thailand, Nhu Quynh was voted the best main striker in the second leg of the SEA V.League 2023.

In September 2023, at the 2023 Asian Women's Volleyball Championship, Nhu Quynh and her seniors Thanh Thuy, Kieu Trinh, Lam Oanh, Ly Thi Luyen... competed very well to win fourth place overall. Notably, at the recent ASIAD, Nhu Quynh also made a great contribution to helping Vietnamese women's volleyball for the first time in history win the right to enter the top 4 strongest teams at ASIAD.

In the matches against Nepal and China, it was the Thai ethnic female athlete from Nghe An who scored the most points for the team. With many smashes that scored points behind the 3m line for the Vietnamese team, some people compared Nhu Quynh to the "3m Sakoda queen" of Vietnam (Saori Sakoda, a famous Japanese main attacker, is only 1m75 tall like Nhu Quynh and smashes extremely well behind the 3m line). If she continues to maintain this form, Nhu Quynh promises to improve even more in the future to become a pillar of the Vietnamese team in the future./.