The Vietnamese swimming team, consisting of two coaches and five athletes, including swimming talent Hoang Quy Phuoc, have had to stop their training at US-based Bolles school due to conflicts between the two coaches and US experts, as well as between the coaches themselves.

The team, including coaches Dang Anh Tuan and Nguyen Tan Quang, and athletes Nguyen Thi Anh Vien, Vo Thai Nguyen, Pham Thanh Nguyen, Nguyen Thi Kim Tuyen, and Quy Phuoc, left Vietnam for the state of Florida in January to begin their six-month training session at the Bolles school with the assistance of US experts.

The training trip was expected to improve the Vietnamese athletes’ skills, since the Bolles school, led by the head coach of the US young swimming squad, Sergio Lopez, had previously trained 16-year-old Singaporean swimming talent Joseph Schooling, who is the only swimmer from ASEAN to meet the A Olympic-qualifying standard.

However, after only three months, the Vietnamese squad had to bid goodbye to the Bolles school.

“We no longer practice with Bolles due to some conflicts between the US experts and the Vietnamese coaches,” a swimmer, who refused to be named, told Tuoi Tre.

“Specifically, the US experts disapproved of the local coaches repeatedly intervening in the training tasks by entering the pools and directly teaching the Vietnamese swimmers.”

After failing to see eye to eye over several months, the Bolles school banned the coaches from following four Vietnamese swimmers to the pools. After that, the Vietnamese squad demanded to leave the school, the swimmer said.

The Vietnamese team has since had to hire other pools for training, under the instruction of the two local coaches, without the accompaniment of any US experts.
Even worse, since the two coaches fought with each other, Coach Quang took care of Phuoc, while Coach Tuan was in charge of the others.

Such troubles have resulted in poor performance from Da Nang swimmer Phuoc, as he has failed to even maintain the results achieved at the 2011 SEA Games in Indonesia last year.

According to Nguyen Phuc Linh, deputy head of Da Nang city’s Department of Culture, Sports, and Tourism, Dinh Viet Hung, head of the swimming department of the General Department of Sports and Physical Training, has confirmed that the Vietnamese swimming squad has ended their training at the Bolles school.

Hung will leave for the US on March 24 to handle the case, and revise the training plan for the team, said Linh.

“If the problem is not solved, we will demand that the team have new training place,” he said, adding that the general department will make the final decision.

Tuoitre