When a 13-year-old Nguyen Van Duong stepped into the ring for the first time he weighed just 33 kilograms and was promptly nicknamed “Little Chicken” by the coach.
More than a decade later, he will travel to Tokyo as the first Vietnamese boxer to compete at an Olympic Games since Seoul 1988.
“I come to the Olympics with the ultimate target — winning a medal,” the 24-year-old featherweight (57kg) fighter told AFP from his training camp in Ho Chi Minh City.
Duong’s extraordinary journey from Vietnam’s Bac Giang — an industrial northern province home to factories supplying Samsung and Foxconn — to Tokyo later this month has astounded even the athlete himself.
A ruthless p…
Keep on reading: ‘Little Chicken’ carries Vietnam’s hopes for Olympic boxing glory