The beginning of passion

(Baonghean) - Winning a Silver Medal at the World Sepak Takraw Championship, a Gold Medal at the National Championship… but for sepak takraw athlete Le Cong Tai, that's just the beginning. For Tai, age 22 is the peak period of a professional athlete's career.

Le Cong Tai recently received an award from the Tam Tai Foundation, and has previously won numerous other awards.

Le Cong Tai with the awards he recently won in 2013.

Tài knew about sepak takraw from his elementary school days, but he was only discovered by coach Ton That Hoa when he participated in the Phu Dong Sports Festival at Hung Dung Secondary School. When Tài and six other boys were called up to the team, Tài was the youngest, both in age (in 6th grade) and in weight and appearance. However, Tài had flexible, agile legs and a quick grasp of things, almost as if he were "born for sepak takraw." While his teammates struggled to grasp the training exercises, Tài adapted very quickly. After six months on the team, he was selected to participate in the national youth tournament. Recalling those early days of the tournament, Tài said: "When I went, I couldn't imagine what the match would be like. Even when I arrived in Ha Tay and started playing, I was still quite clumsy."

In his first tournament, Tài was defeated. This was not unexpected by the coaching staff because at that time, the Nghệ An sepak takraw team was just being formed, lacking experience and a large pool of players to compete against. Lê Công Tài himself was also too young at the time to understand the significance of winning and losing for a professional athlete. After the tournament, many of his teammates who joined at the same time withdrew from the team because they couldn't handle the pressure, and some were eliminated for not meeting the requirements. The team was left with only Tài, Thanh (who later won a gold medal at the World Championships), and a few other members.

After deciding to commit to the team long-term, Le Cong Tai began to consider this his "career" and dedicated more time to sepak takraw. Regularly, every day, in addition to his regular school classes, he would cycle to the provincial sports training center to train with his coach. Having started his athletic career early, Le Cong Tai didn't have much time for friends, reading, or watching movies like his peers. Tai confided, "I'm more shy than my friends, partly because of that."

Despite his hard work, Le Cong Tai continued to fail in the following two tournaments. Three years without a medal at the national youth championships led to moments of negativity and self-reproach, feeling guilty for failing to live up to the expectations of his coach and parents. He even considered giving up, but the encouragement of coach Ton That Hoa and his parents gave him the strength to continue training. His first medal was a silver at the 2009 national youth championships held in Nghe An. From the time he joined the team until achieving this feat, it took him exactly five years and over a thousand days of arduous training. This silver medal ended his period of "empty hands," and after that, he won awards in almost every tournament he participated in. Notably, for two consecutive years at the national tournament (2012 and 2013), Tai won the gold medal and became one of Vietnam's best athletes selected to participate in the world sepak takraw championship.

Le Cong Tai recounted that, before participating in the world championship held in September in Dong Thap, the entire team spent nearly three months training at the National Sports Training Center. It was called training, but in reality, it was for gaining experience and competing; everyone wanted to win to secure a place in the official competition. Tai's opponents at the time were two athletes from Bac Giang and Dong Thap, provinces with a strong tradition in sepak takraw. It took a great deal of effort for Le Cong Tai to earn a spot in the men's singles competition, a position many athletes dream of. Not letting down the coaching staff and teachers at the Center, in the tournament, he won against his Taiwanese and German opponents in just 10-15 minutes. Only in the final match against a Chinese player, the birthplace of sepak takraw, did Le Cong Tai suffer a narrow defeat with scores of 23-21 and 21-19.

After this defeat, Tài learned a lesson: it wasn't because he was overwhelmed by a big player, or because he was overly nervous, but because his technique and physical fitness were still too weak. Therefore, later on, Lê Công Tài dedicated more time to these two physical fitness training exercises. After winning a medal at the world championship, everyone thought Lê Công Tài would enroll in university to prepare for a long-term career as a sepak takraw player. But in a conversation with me, Tài said: "I joined the sepak takraw team when I was 12 years old. For the past 10 years, the province has invested billions of dong in me. Now is my peak competitive period. If I only focus on myself, I'll be letting everyone down. I want to contribute for a few more years. First, I aim for the National Sports Games, and then I hope to win a gold medal at the world championship in two years' time."

Text and photos:My Ha