FATHER DEFUND BOMB, SON SET RECORD

"According to my family, April 30, 1975 was the milestone that marked the first time I met my father, when he returned from the battlefield. He was a student of the 5th class of Chemistry, Hanoi University of Science and Technology, went to Germany to do research on explosives, and was assigned to the Quang Tri battlefield during the most fierce years of the war, with the task of clearing bombs and mines. Fortunately, my father had a good fate, he was once wounded by a bomb fragment but was lucky to return and was also lucky not to be infected with Agent Orange. Thanks to that, my two younger siblings and I were born healthy...", Colonel Hoang Xuan Vinh recalled.

PHOTO: AFP

"If the survival mission of engineering soldiers like my father back then was to defuse bombs, clear the way for the troops, or as Uncle Ho said, "engineers go first and come back later, paving the way to victory"..., the survival mission of top athletes like us is to break records, set records, return with victory...", the owner of the first and only Olympic gold medal for Vietnam up to this point, shared with Thanh Nien .

And two Vietnamese words rang out.

The record was indeed set in the most impressive way at the 2016 Olympics held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. A historic summer day, a shining milestone in the successful career of shooter Hoang Xuan Vinh and of the country's sports: Vietnam first made its name on the Olympic map with a prestigious gold medal in the men's 10m air pistol event on August 7, 2016 and then a silver medal in the 50m slow-fire pistol event on August 10. The army shooter defeated the best opponents in a series of shots that were not only a race of intelligence but also of the national soul.

PHOTO: SCREENSHOT

9 years later, recalling the moment of inspiration, shooter Hoang Xuan Vinh emotionally said: "An extremely difficult goal, a mountain peak I never dared to think of. Vietnamese sports never dared to dream of either. Even when I continuously won at the SEA Games or later, the continental arena, I still thought: "Olympics? I probably can't do it!". Then I dreamed of an Olympic medal, but never dared to dream of a gold or silver medal. Then "suddenly" a miracle appeared, just in a split second, after the last shot that helped turn the situation around. A split second, but it brought up a long journey, how much Vietnamese sports yearned for that medal, how important the Olympics were to Vietnam, how difficult the road to get there was, how passionate I was, how much I longed for it... And then the two words "Vietnam" rang out on the world's biggest arena, as if I couldn't believe my ears. I couldn't explain it at that time! Later, if people let me do it a million times over, I probably wouldn't be able to do it either...".

So, after 9 years, is there an explanation for that magical moment? "Perhaps that was the period when the biological energy accumulated within me was so great, with experience, dreams, health and intelligence, spirit and courage, heart and soul..., and then at that moment everything exploded, crystallizing into two sacred words Vietnam at that time, there...".

T THE MAGNETIC FIELD OF DREAMS

There was luck, if viewed from a "spiritual" perspective, the champion admitted. But there would have been no "luck" here, if before that, the dream had not been passionately nurtured. There has always been a magnet drawing Vinh towards the magnetic field of the dream of conquering the peak: "Having taken on a career means always having to embrace in your heart the desire for medals and victories, to win glory for the Fatherland and return gloriously. After each competition at the SEA Games, then Asia and the world, the portrait of my dream becomes sharper, more and more dimensional, with more intense tones and more decisive compositions. Only when you nurture your dream, always put it in the center of your chest, always think of it as an idea, a clear compass, can you master and conquer it. You must know how to sculpt the shape of your dream to fit its dimensions...", the army colonel who loved to hold a brush and... failed the entrance exam to the University of Fine Arts talks about the "portrait of your dream" that he wanted to paint, and did paint.

PHOTO: BUI LUONG

"Keeping a big dream alive is truly a feat. It is inevitable that there will be times when I feel discouraged because of failure, because of losing the gold medal in a split second... I always have to build for myself a very regular training and living principle, what time to do what, very clear and disciplined in the true military style. There are daily pleasures that must be sacrificed to maintain order and form, goals and will. I tell myself: To achieve victory, the generation of soldiers like my father had to sacrifice their lives or their personal lives, here I am only sacrificing a part of my life...".

The man who held a gun in peacetime has returned to the old battlefield of Quang Tri, where his father's soldier's uniform had been exposed to wind and rain and faced danger, along with the charity gift he took from the bonus money to honor his Olympic gold medal. The man who had experienced the rain and sunshine of the training ground and the storms of the arena said that, up to now, for him, the inner battle is the most difficult because there are scratches that no one can see, not easy to face. But on the one hand, time and the other side of the medal seem to have "done nothing" to the champion, when his face still retains the calm and simple look of a person who has experienced both glory and failure, who was once a "warrior" who rushed into battle. And now it is time to wait for the "changing of the guard".