Le Thi Tham and the SEA Games dream
(Baonghean) -Born on February 4, 1992, the youngest child in a farming family of four siblings in Hamlet 4, Dien Thang Commune (Dien Chau District), fate brought this young country girl to become a promising weightlifter of Nghe An Sports and the Vietnam National Team.
Coach Vu Le Hoang (in charge of weightlifting at the Provincial Sports Training Center) said: In the summer of 2007, I happened to go back to my hometown and met a physical education teacher at Dien Thang Secondary School. He was introduced to the secondary school he taught, where Le Thi Tham had a very good physique and was good at sports. Coach Vu Le Hoang immediately went to check her out. After talking for a while, Coach Vu Le Hoang asked: "Do you weigh over 58kg?", Tham replied: "I weigh 64kg". Looking at the tall, toned secondary school girl, Coach Vu Le Hoang immediately "took notice" of her and told her to take her home to meet her parents.
Le Thi Tham received gold medal at National Weightlifting Championship.
Seeing the people from the Provincial Sports Training Center come to invite his daughter to Vinh to study sports to compete in the National tournament, Mr. Le Dinh Tham (Le Thi Tham's father) laughed heartily: "Okay! If you can train her and bring her to compete and win a medal, then I will buy a goat to slaughter as a thank you."
In July 2007, Le Thi Tham was taken by her father to Vinh, to the Provincial Sports Training Center. After arranging accommodation and seeing Mr. Le Dinh Tham off, Coach Vu Le Hoang led Tham to the weightlifting class. As soon as she stepped through the door, she suddenly burst into tears, saying: "I won't learn this subject! Let me practice volleyball". Coach Vu Le Hoang had to coax her: "Just go in and watch, every day I will show you a subject so you can see which subject is most suitable for you and then decide. However, I think your height is not suitable for volleyball". In the following days, the girl continued to cry and kept asking to go home, Coach Vu Le Hoang had to constantly encourage her, at the same time telling the students in the weightlifting class to always be close to help Tham gradually get used to the new environment. On the 5th day, Tham took the initiative to meet Coach Vu Le Hoang and said: "I have decided to learn weightlifting. Please let me join the class".
After 8 months of hard training, in 2008, Le Thi Tham was selected to join the provincial sports team to participate in the National Youth Weightlifting Championship. The first time she stepped onto the official competition floor, Le Thi Tham won 2 bronze medals. At the end of that year, Tham was able to participate in the National Youth Weightlifting Championship and she excellently won 2 gold medals and 1 silver medal. With good qualities and diligent training, Le Thi Tham's competition results have been increasingly high. In 2009 and 2010, she won all 3 gold medals (snatch, clean and jerk and total) at the National Youth Weightlifting Championships. Since 2011, Le Thi Tham has competed in both the youth and national championships and in the 75kg weight class, this athlete from Nghe An has proven herself to be unrivaled when she consecutively won all 3 gold medals in all tournaments.
With her excellent achievements, in early 2013, Le Thi Tham was called up to the Vietnam National Team for training to supplement the force in preparation for participating in international weightlifting championships. Le Thi Tham shared: “The more I practice, the more I love weightlifting. My dream is to officially compete in the SEA Games taking place in Indonesia in December this year. I will strive to achieve that and bring glory to my homeland.”
Article and photos: Hoang Hao