Vietnamese gymnast beats spinal condition to qualify for Olympics again

Pham Phuoc Hung, 28, arrived in Hanoi on Thursday evening after booking his ticket to the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio, Brazil.

Setting a another milestone in his 21-year gymnastic career, Hung’s talent was first discovered by gymnastics coaches when he was a second grader at Ba Dinh Elementary School in the capital city.

Hung said he knew nothing about gymnastics at the time, but the sport gradually grew on him as he participated in practice sessions at a local stadium following his parents and the school’s encouragement.

“The other peers were frightened of gymnastics since the trainings were tough and painful for newcomers, but I felt no pain at all since I was naturally flexible,” Hung said.

“One year after taking up gymnastics, I was taken to Nanning City in Guangxi, China for a long-term training course. That was when I officially began my professional career as a gymnast,” Hung recalled.

After twelve years away from home to train in China, not only had Hung mastered the difficult gymnastic moves and techniques, but the young athlete had also developed an independent and resilient spirit.

Hung returned to Vietnam in 2002 to participate in his first National Games in Hanoi, and would be crowned champion in two events, the horizontal bar and parallel bars, striking awe among the other professionals and the audience that was there.

The 14-year-old Pham Phuoc Hung was able to complete technical moves that normally athletes four to five years older than him could do at the time.

Shock at age 18

Tragedy struck Hung in 2006, however, when he was diagnosed with a severe case of spinal tuberculosis at the age of 18.

“At first I felt a pain in my back that wouldn’t go away even after several months. After competing in the 2006 National Games, I had to lie in one place because the pain had become so intolerable. When the team’s specialist gave me a massage during a training session later, he noticed that there was a hump on my spinal cord, so he made me take a radiograph to see what was wrong,” Hung recalled.

“It turned out I had spinal tuberculosis because of my excessive training, and two of my vertebrae had already been corroded. The doctor warned me off gymnastics for the rest of my life, for fear that I could be left permanently paralyzed. Cutting short my training course in China, I was transferred back to Vietnam for medical treatment and that should have been the end of my athletic career,” he said.

For the next year Hung underwent treatment for his spinal tuberculosis at the Central Hospital for Tuberculosis and Pulmonary Diseases in Hanoi, taking into his body innumerable amounts of antibiotics.

The sense of emptiness that followed left Hung lost for direction. Gymnastics had been his whole life for the last 11 years.

Hung rejected his family’s advice to go back to school and look for a more suitable job, and made up his mind to get back into the gymnastics team after a year of treatment despite the coach’s initial rejection.

“After undergoing tuberculosis treatment for a while, I felt that I was ready to take up training once again, despite doctors telling me to continue my medication for a few more months. At first the coaches at the stadium didn’t allow it, but gradually I was back on the training ground,” Hung said.

“The only thing in my mind at the time was to fight my way to the Olympic Games, and I wanted to show everybody that I was capable of doing that,” Hung said.

Two-time Olympics qualifier

In 2007, Hung competed at the 24th Southeast Asian Games (SEA Games) in Thailand and bagged one gold medal and two silvers as part of Vietnam’s gymnastics team.

Hung then came down with pulmonary tuberculosis in 2013 after returning from the 2012 London Olympics and the 2013 Universiade Games in Russia.

Once again, the persevering athlete fought back after another half a year of treatment, and was back in the ring with the aim of qualifying for the Olympic Games for a second time.

Hung scored 84.032 points for his performance in the all-around event at the 2016 Rio Olympics qualifying round in Brazil on April 17, guaranteeing his place at the Summer Olympics this August.

Nguyen Tuan Hien, head coach of Vietnam’s male gymnastics team, said it was not every day he found an athlete with such an incredible spirit as Hung.

Hung said he hoped to open his own gymnastics club when he retired, adding, “I wish to make gymnastics more widely available to the people, since it’s a basic sport that fully develops our physical fitness."

During his 21 years of being a gymnast, Hung has taken part in two Olympic Games, claimed two gold medals at the Artistic Gymnastics World Cup Series in 2012 and 2013, as well as six gold medals in SEA Games competitions.

Earlier this year, a gymnastic technique invented by Hung was officially named after his family name of ‘PHAM’ and added to the International Federation of Gymnastics (FIG) Men’s Gymnastics Code of Points, after he performed the move at the FIG World Championships in Scotland in November.