THE Olympics is about far more than just medals and world records.
Below is a letter from Vietnam’s Orange-based rowing coach Joe Donnelly – who helped the team qualify for the Rio Olympic Games, where the team punched well above its weight on the water.
I GUESS you have all been watching the Olympics in Rio with interest and were disappointed to see the final outcome of the Vietnamese LW2X.
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As you can imagine, I was disappointed not to be able to race the C final and not to be able to fulfill a four year dream to take on the big guns with a lowly ranked team like Vietnam.
To keep everything in perspective now the event is over, I can briefly reiterate the eventualities of my team of girls and the misfortune that effected our preparation and the competition in Rio .
In November 2015, Mr Quang the Vietnam coach and myself were successful in convincing Ms Thao who was retiring from rowing having gone to the London Olympics to continue rowing until the qualification regatta in Korea.
We then formed a good combination in the LW2X with Ms Huyen and also prepared Ms Hue for the W1X to give Vietnam 2 opportunities to qualify for Rio.
The team came to Australia for the 2016 Nationals and rowed well winning the W4X over 500 metres as well as competing in the Olympic qualification events .
Whilst in Australia, Thao had problems with her back which were a major concern for us but were managed and repaired by Drs Sharyn Pussell and Jamie Gordon who are major benefactors to the Vietnam Team.
We went to Korea for the Olympic qualifier in April where all three girls rowed the races of their lives .
Hue rowed the the second fastest time in the semi-final of all scullers , finishing a close second to the eventual winner from Korea and qualified for Rio in the W1X.
The two girls in the LW2X had a more difficult task having to go through the repercharge. They were ranked No.6 in the A final, the same position as they were four years before at the qualification regatta in Korea for the London Olympics.
Completing a mirror image performance from four years before, the Vietnamese double took the race to the opposition leading from the start to finish third once again by point-two-of-a second and qualify for the Olympics in Rio as they had done four years before for London.
The elation was short lived as we had qualified two boats for Rio but now had to tell Ms Hue she could not go to the Olympics under the new rule of universality established by FISA.
What a disappointment this was for Hue and for me, as it was one of the hardest things I have had to do in rowing. To ask a rower to row until she dies to go to the Olympics, then to tell her she can't go after she could not stand after the race and then to see her cheer for her friends in the LW2X knowing if they finished third, she would not be going to Rio.
At this point in time we were eight weeks away from the Olympics with the LW2X going well only to be punished again when Ms Thao had a re-occurrence of the back problem and could not train. She could not be replaced by Ms Hue only four weeks before the games as Hue was now 70kg and needed to be 59kg in order to go into the boat. A weight loss of that amount in four weeks was impossible.
As a result, the reserve from Korea Ms Ly, who also went to Australia, was put into the LW2X for Rio, only four weeks before having to take on the best in the World.
As you can imagine, a four week preparation against the best in the world who were training in Europe and the USA was going to be a difficult task no matter what crew I had.
In the heats in Rio we drew the toughest heat with the eventual gold medal winners from the Netherlands as well as the reigning world champions from New Zealand, Japan who were the top qualifer from Asia and Romania.
Not being defeatists, we decided to see what speed we had and to race hard for the first 1000 metres knowing we would need to row the repercharge. To our surprise, we had good speed leading the Netherlands early and being the third fastest crew from the 20 countries entered over the first 500 metres.
We then had to row the repercharge the next day which was postponed due to bad weather for 24 hours. When we finally raced, there was a good performance into a strong head wind finishing fourth behind Romania, Germany and Italy and in a good time compared to the second repercharge. The boat had now qualified for the CD semi-final which ,given the problems highlighted above, was a surprise.
The next day came with the CD semi-final and again we were hit with misfortune just before the race when Ms Huyen had a temperature of 38 degrees. The Vietnamese doctor treated Huyen and got her temperature down enough to race.
Again, we led the race early and were second at the 1000-metre mark behind Great Britain only having to come third to progress to the C final. We did that without much difficulty.
That night further misfortune resulted when Ms Huyen’s temperature again went over 38 degrees and she was very ill. As a result, the Vietnamese Chef De Mission and Doctor made the call to withdraw the boat from competition due to sickness and I proceeded to address the issue with FISA and the appropriate regatta personnel.
Well, what more can I say? It's all there for you to digest.
The negatives are disappointment at not being able to take our best boat to the Olympics after four years of development and preparation and then not being able to compete in the final race.
The positives are we qualified one boat for the London Olympics and two boats for Rio.
Along the way, the team has improved their rowing skills, developed professionalism to training and racing and I think I have changed the lives of many of the rowers forever. I have have also made many friends in Vietnam and around the world and in particular among the athletes and administration in Vietnam.
Where to from here?
I hope Vietnam rowing will continue to support rowing on the world stage and will develop the work that has been done over the past four years to ensure that at least two boats can qualify for the next Olympics in Tokyo.
I also hope that the friends and benefactors will continue to support the team, as without you, I don't think the improvement will be possible – thank you.