Olympic-ousted swimmer shocked at the blow

Vietnamese swimming talent Hoang Quy Phuoc, who had been preparing to head to the 2012 Olympics thanks to his achievements in the qualifying standard B , was shocked to learn that he will not be going to London this summer.

“Phuoc is now in his home city of Da Nang and has yet to recover from the blow,” Dang Dong Hai, director of the Da Nang Center for Athlete Training, told Tuoi Tre following local news coverage that the 19-year-old will not attend the 2012 London Olympic Games .

“He even got rid of his mobile SIM card to avoid being contacted by anyone,” added Hai.

The Da Nang-based swimmer is one of the greatest talents of Vietnamese swimming.

He earned a bronze medal at the SEA Games 25 in Laos, his first trophy at a regional tournament, before making huge improvement insubsequent events.

Phuoc’s performance peaked at the SEA Games 26 in Indonesia last year, when he grabbed three gold medals, and broke a SEA Games record in the 100m butterfly stroke event.

However, his journey to even higher performance ran into trouble last year, after a controversial training trip in the US in which the two coaches leading the trip fought with each other and the players ended up being rejected from training in a local school.

After leaving the US Phuoc and his coach, Nguyen Tuan Quang , went on to train in China , which partly helped him to recover his form.

He made some improvement at the Southeast Asia swimming championship last month, and had returned to Vietnam to rest before another China training trip to prepare for the Olympics.

Earlier he had achieved the Olympic qualifying standard B for the 100-meter butterfly event at 53”56, while the standard is 54”19.

However, an announcement released by the International Swimming Federation (FINA) earlier this month said that Phuoc was not qualified for the Games, as there are too many swimmers who achieved the qualifying standard A.

FINA invited the top seven swimmers in each category to the Olympics, while Phuoc stood at 18th place.

Hai said his center is trying to bring Phuoc back to training.

“Da Nang authorities and the General Department of Sports and Physical Training are also promoting training plans for Phuoc to prepare for the Asian championship in Dubai this October, and the 2012 SEA Games,” he said.

“However, we are still waiting to find out what Phuoc really wants to do to choose the a suitable location for practice.”