After his failure at the SEA Games 2009, weight-lifter Hoang Anh Tuan returned to the National Sports Training Centre in Hanoi to practice on December 22.

Hoang Anh Tuan in the moment of failure.

Hoang Anh Tuan: 10 years, 3 months and 1 hour

Tuan aims for SEA Games gold

Tuan said that after Do Dinh Khang, chief of the coaching board, paid a visit to his family in Bac Ninh, he gave up the idea of quitting sports. However, the recent failure has affected his “self-confidence”.

Tuan began practicing on December 23 to prepare for the Asian Games 2010 in Guangzhou, China.

Vietnamese fans were disappointed when Olympic silver medalist Hoang Anh Tuan failed to win gold in the men’s 56kg category at the recent SEA Games in Laos.

The 24-year-old athlete was philosophical about his loss and put it down to errors and bad tactics. The gold went to Indonesia’s Jadi Setiadi.

“I’m broken-hearted. This is my third consecutive failure at the SEA Games. I don’t know what to say except sorry to the people who put their hopes on me,” said Tuan, who often trained without a coach.

Tuan was expected to cruise to victory in this event, which he missed out on in the previous Games in Thailand two years ago. The gold was won by Eko Irawan Yuli of Indonesia who also won a bronze medal at the Beijing Olympics.

Tuan’s hopes were further raised when his key rival Eko instead competed in the 62kg division after his success in the recent World Weightlifting Championship. This left Tuan with an apparently easy task.

In the training sessions in Laos, Tuan, who won two gold medals in the men’s 56kg category at the Asian Weightlifting Championships, held in Kanazawa, Japan last April, often lifted a combined total of 280kg.

However, in the competition, Tuan lifted 125kg at the second attempt of the ’snatch’ discipline, while his main rival, Jadi of Indonesia, bettered him by 1kg.

Turning to the clean and jerk category which is Tuan’s strength, Tuan’s opening weight was 152kg (heavier than Jadi by 7kg) but he failed at all three attempts. Jadi eventually succeeded in lifting 148kg.

Tuan was only the second Vietnamese athlete to bring home a silver medal from the Olympic Games. The first was won by the women’s Taekwondo athlete Tran Hieu Ngan at the 2000 Olympics in Sydney.

Tuan’s loss was considered a heavy blow to the Vietnam sporting delegation in Laos. After this failure, Tuan initially stated he would leave his sports career.

PV