VietNamNet Bridge – Vietnamese marksman Pham Cao Son has collected an astonishing 300 medals over 20 years of competition.

Golden gun: Vietnamese marksman Pham Cao Son has collected a collection of around 300 medals in over 20 years of competitions.

He has broken 20 national records with his championship wins and has donned the national jersey since 1988.

Born in 1970 in Hai Phong City, Son started training in the sport when he was 15 under senior coach Hoang Quang Duyen. He was then recruited by the national team after his two-year training course in the northern port city.

During his 20 year tenure with the Hai Phong and national team, his best result was eight years ago when he claimed a silver medal at the Asian Shooting Championship.

Son’s favourite event is the men’s 25m centrefire. This event lifted him to Hai Phong hero status, when in 2003 he matched a current world record at the National Top Players Cup in the city.

Son equalled the current world record with 590 points, matching Russian Kusmin Anasasi’s performance in Zagreb, Yugoslavia, in 1989, and surpassing the 1990 Asian record set by Tark Tyung Taek of South Korea during the Beijing Asian Games with 589 points.

Something Son has not yet been able to achieve is winning a medal at the Asian Games, which prevents him from surpassing other Vietnamese shooting stars such as Nguyen Manh Tuong, 48, who won a bronze medal in the men’s pistol at Busan Asian Games, South Korea in 2002, and 1982 Asian Games bronze medal winner Tran Quoc Cuong.

Son said he wishes to compete in the sport for the next decade, which would make him one of the oldest competitive marksmen in the country.

Home life

Son and his wife Dang Thi Hang, who is also a national team member, have together racked up over 400 medals.

Hang, 36, before retiring from the national team in 2003, bagged a host of medals from national tournaments and the Southeast Asian Games.

During training with the national squad at the National Sports Camp No 1 in Ha Noi, Son and Hang lived at the centre with their then eight-year-old son, Huy.

Huy spent a total of five years at the Nhon Town sports camp with his parents and travelled with them to tournaments year-round.

“As we trained with the national team, we took him to the centre, so we could take care of him. It’s a difficult course, but we had no other way,” Son said.

Today, Son still commutes between Ha Noi and Hai Phong every weekend.

“My wife and son now stay at home in Hai Phong City, while I continue training with the national team in Ha Noi. It takes me hours travelling by bus from Ha Noi to Hai Phong every Saturday,” he said.

“Over the last decade, I have often stayed in Nhon Town sports camp longer than my hometown. I have only a little time for my family, just Saturdays and Sundays.”

Son has both the role of athlete and coach for the Hai Phong team at the national championship.

“It’s fate. I devoted my life to the sport that I love from my childhood. But the sport also brings me glorious victories in my life,” he said.

Viet Nam’s marksmanship team has been one of the consistent medal winners in the SEA Games over the years, along with the martial arts of wushu, pencak silat and taekwondo. However, the sport has not yet earned Viet Nam a place in world rankings.

At the 2003 SEA Games marksmen won 25 of Viet Nam’s 155 gold medals, which helped Viet Nam to top the medal tally of the biggest regional games for the first time.

Son hopes that the sport will soon become professional, which will help athletes improve their lives and receive better cash-prizes from national tournaments.

Marksmanship has not become a professional sport, because it has not attracted sponsors. In Viet Nam, only football and volleyball have made the transition into the first stage of becoming professional.

(Source: Viet Nam News)