Hai Duong is not short of famous "side-track" athletes.

"Mutant" talent

Nguyen Xuan Thanh is called a person with "mutant" talent by the Hai Duong sports community. Until now, he is still a shooting monument of Hai Duong that no other athlete has surpassed. When he first started learning shooting, when he was brought to the Hai Duong Shooting Club, he could not stand as tall as the rifle so the teacher sent him home, promising to return next year. But with his passion for this sport, Thanh often appeared at the club, volunteering to do tasks to serve the training of his brothers and sisters, just to be able to live in a shooting environment. When he became a shooting athlete, Nguyen Xuan Thanh won the national championship 7 times, breaking the GANEFO Sports Festival record that had existed for over 10 years.

In 2011, when his competitive career ended, Nguyen Xuan Thanh turned to archery as a coach. If he was successful as an athlete, then as a coach of the newly established archery team, Thanh surprised everyone by immediately achieving success, not only in the province, the country, the region, but also reaching the world level. That was when he brought his favorite student, Nguyen Hoang Phi Vu, to the Olympics - the largest sports arena on the planet. This was the first time Hai Duong had an archer winning a ticket to the Olympics and also the first time Vietnam had an archery team participating. Not only Nguyen Hoang Phi Vu, Thanh also built a generation of talented students such as Le Phuong Thao, Tran Hoang - archers who were in the Vietnam national team, won silver medals, bronze medals at the SEA Games; gold medals at the Asian Excellence Cup. Tran Hoang also won the National Excellent Archer Championship. The beautiful female archer Le Phuong Thao is originally a... volleyball player.

At the Hai Duong Sports Training, Coaching and Competition Center, Tran Thi Kim Oanh is also a "cross-over" talent. Not only is she the leader of the Hai Duong rowing team, Kim Oanh has been a pillar of Vietnam's national rowing for many years. But few people know that before becoming an athlete and then a rowing coach, Kim Oanh was a heavyweight track and field athlete (throwers, javelin throwers, discus throwers...). In 1998, she also tried her hand at weightlifting but was unsuccessful, then switched to rowing and became a key factor in making Hai Duong rowing one of the strongest teams in Vietnam for many years.

Both teacher and student "turn sideways"

The weightlifting icon of Hai Duong as well as Vietnam - who has twice entered the Olympic arena is Nguyen Thi Thiet. She is currently the head coach of the Hai Duong weightlifting team. Before coming to weightlifting, Nguyen Thi Thiet was a swimmer - diver. In 1999, Thiet switched to weightlifting and only 1 year later, she achieved success in the youth tournament and the national championship. In 2001, she won 3 gold medals in the women's 58 kg category at the National Championship in Ho Chi Minh City. At this tournament, Nguyen Thi Thiet surpassed 2 athletes from Hanoi who had just won the silver medal and bronze medal at the SEA Games. From 2001 until she retired from competition to switch to coaching (in 2010), Thiet had no opponents in the 58 - 63 kg category. In 2002, 2006, 2010, she set a record when she won 9 gold medals at the National Sports Festival. "Nguyen Thi Thiet has the physical foundation of a swimmer and diver and excels when it comes to weightlifting techniques. Thiet is intelligent and has innate talent, so in a very short time she has achieved national achievements," commented Nguyen Xuan Long, Head of the Competition Training Department (Hai Duong Sports Training, Coaching and Competition Center).

An interesting surprise is that coach Nguyen Xuan Long, who helped Nguyen Thi Thiet achieve success, is also an "amateur" who started out as a shooting athlete in 1990. In 1996, he studied shooting at university, graduated in 2000 and became a weightlifting coach. Mr. Long said that when he was in university, he only had a rudimentary approach to weightlifting, so when he became a coach for this sport, he was very confused. Around 2001, the Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism of Hai Duong sent the weightlifting team for training, so they had the opportunity to learn about this sport. Fate brought Mr. Long to weightlifting and he had in his team a group of excellent students including the monument Nguyen Thi Thiet; Nguyen Thi Hoa, 3 national gold medals, breaking national records; Nguyen Thi Ngan, 3 gold medals at the National Sports Festival, many times national champion and countless gold medals at youth competitions. From 2007 to 2010, Hai Duong weightlifting team continuously ranked third in the whole delegation, only after Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City.

In the history of Vietnamese sports, not many athletes and coaches have succeeded after "turning the corner", but in Hai Duong it is not rare.