Nguyen Thi Cao Nguyen (R), a six-time SEA Games Gold Medal winner, competes in a wheelchair race

Once ashamed of her disability, a SEA Games gold medal winner is proud of her accomplishments both on and off the track.

“They tried their best but couldn’t make my legs normal.”

Nguyen suffered a deep inferiority complex.

She was the eighth of 10 children in a small Ho Chi Minh City home. She attended school only off and on as money was tight in her family, and many semesters there simply wasn’t enough of it to go around.

Her parents and all her siblings worked hard, she said. The family even moved to Binh Phuoc Province for a time to try its hand at farming. But they failed to make ends meet there as well.

After that setback, something sparked inside Nguyen. She decided she wouldn’t resign herself to hopelessness and her insecurity began to fade.

She asked her older brothers and sisters to find her a job at a small clothing factory. The owner hired her and she learned fast. She was soon making enough money to save and her confidence grew.

She had soon saved enough money to open her own small assembly shop. The high quality of her work gained Nguyen a wide customer base almost immediately and the money began to roll in. She quickly made enough to begin supporting her family.

“The shop was enough for me at the time,” Nguyen said. “I didn’t think I could do anything more.

“But I was so confident that I gradually began to forget my disability.”

Then another opportunity arose.

No pain, no gain

In 2001, a disabled friend of Nguyen’s asked if she wanted to try sports.

“I thought for a while and decided to try it, thinking it would be a good way for me to get in shape and make friends.”

First, she excelled in badminton. Then she moved to wheelchair races. But at the start, it was a nightmare.

She couldn’t keep from falling backward, not used to keeping balance in a wheelchair while racing so hard. She also injured her hands several times.

After years of sitting at a sewing machine, she simply wasn’t ready to jump right into the difficult sport.

“I thought about quitting several times, but I told myself to stand up and be strong,” Nguyen said.

She kept practicing and she got better and better. Her balance improved to near perfection and her hands became strong.

Later that year, she won her first gold medal at a national race for the disabled. By the end of the year she had also taken a silver medal at an Asian competition in the 10km category.

“I cried when I received the medals. I cried because I was happy and felt as though I wasn’t disabled at all,” Nguyen said.

She eventually got married and had children, but still continued to rake in medals in different categories.

Her biggest success was the five gold medals she won at the Southeast Asian Paragames in the Philippines in 2005.

“While competing, I just think about family, national pride and my disability – then my hands just push harder and harder,” Nguyen said.

After the 2005 competitions, she suffered wrist injuries and thought she would have to quit. But her strong will and determination sent her back to the field for nearly five more years.

Now she’s in at least partial retirement, back at home with her job running the small shop with her family.

She’s left the glory behind, but says she’s made her family happy, and that’s all she cares about. She’s content with the knowledge that she can do anything she puts her mind to.

Reported by Tay Nguyen - Thanh Thang