Nguyen Thi Hong, 33, from the central Quang Tri Province, has never considered herself to be a disabled person, though the weightlifter grew up with paralysis in her legs. Her optimistic outlook on life has won her a ‘ticket’ to compete in the 2012 Paralympics in London.

When Hong turned four, a serious illness shrunk and completely paralyzed her legs. Faced with illness, poverty, and illiteracy, Hong dared to dream of a brighter future for herself. The girl decided to live and grow up like a cactus trees in the desert.

When Hong was 15, she opened a small coffee shop near her house to earn a living and support herself.

The literate choice

Fortune came to her life in 1996, when the staff of the Greentree Peace Humanitarian Program offered her one of two choices – go to school, or receive a sewing machine.

After careful thinking, the eight-year-old girl chose the scholarship to begin her education, though family members and friends advised her to choose the sewing machine.

Several challenges confronted her at the time, as she looked two years older than her classmates. She was teased and laughed at by friends. Each day, Hong had to travel 3.5 kilometers in her wheelchair just to reach school.

Despite the difficulties, Hong was always a good student, though she quit school and began studying sewing in order to make money when she was an eighth grader.

Later she fell in love with her neighbour, Nguyen Tran Vu. The love was forbidden by both families. Since they were truly in love, the couple chose to run away from their hometown to Ho Chi Minh City to begin a new life.

Disability overcome

We met Hong at a training centre shouldering the city’s Tan Binh District Sport Center, where her disabled weight-lifting team practices every day. They train with a set of weights that has been used for more than ten years.

The professional disabled weight-lifter said the job came to her by chance. In 2003, an official in her commune said that she was in good health condition and suggested she compete in a wheelchair race organized by a district in Quang Tri province.

Hong rejected the suggestion, but the official insisted that she register her name in the competition. The girl relented, and Hong had to take her wheelchair to the national highway to train herself for the competition.

Hong did not tell her parents that she had joined the competition, in which she won a gold medal for the 3,000 meter race. A month later, she won three additional gold medals at another competition held by Quang Tri Province.

She was then invited to compete as a wheelchair-racer at a sport competition for disabled people in Hanoi a few months later. Once again, she snagged the gold medal in 3,000-meter race.

After winning the gold medal in the morning, she was invited to try weightlifting in the afternoon. Incredibly, she received a silver medal.

Later, Hong was invited to join the national female weightlifting team, not the wheelchair racing group, in order to compete at the ASEAN Paragames. Ever since, her career has been closely linked to weight lifting, even though wheelchair racing is what brought her into sports in the first place.

Dream comes true

There are many challenges for a woman training to be a weighlifter. Hong said: “Doing anything is a challenge for a disabled person, so training weightlifting is extremely difficult. The important thing is that we are able to overcome our limitations and achieve a brighter future.”

Exerting all of her strength and ability, Hong dedicates her life to the weights, though her life is still difficult. When Hong still lived in Quang Tri, she received VND300,000 for training with the weightlifting team each month.

She moved to Ho Chi Minh City in 2008. Hong now trains without salary and gets money upon her competition achievements. Three months ago, Hong had to stop sewing clothes so she could spend more time preparing for the ASEAN Paragames 2011. She received an allowance of VND8.4 million.

The couple’s economic burden has now been put on Vu, Hong’s husband, who works as a blue-collar worker and makes VND4 million each month.

Life became even more difficult when the couple had their first child in 2007, as Hong needed special meals to regain her strength and health for training. The small family lives in a rented house in Tan Binh District. They rent the house for VND1.3 million per month.

Though working and training makes surviving in the city hard, Hong’s regularly adds to her medal collection, with two new ASEAN Paragames gold medal, a gold medal for Asian disabled weight lifters in 2006, and others.

Hong also won a bronze medal at a weightlifting championship held in mid-October in Saudi Arabia. The prize offered her a chance to compete at the Paralympics London 2012. Hong said: “I am very happy when I think of competing in London against the world’s leading weightlifters.”

Tuoitre