Marcel Nguyen

Marcel Nguyen
Nguyen in 2014
Personal information
Full name Marcel Van Minh Phuc Long Nguyen
Country represented  Germany
Born (1987-09-08) 8 September 1987
Munich, West Germany (now Munich, Germany)
Height 165 cm (5 ft 5 in)
Weight 119 lb (54 kg)
Discipline Men's artistic gymnastics
Club KTV Straubenhardt/TSV Unterhaching
Head coach(es) Valery Belenky
Medal record
Representing  Germany
Olympic Games
2012 LondonAll-Around
2012 LondonParallel Bars
World Championships
2007 StuttgartTeam
European Championships
2010 BirminghamTeam
2011 BerlinParallel Bars
2012 MontpellierParallel Bars
2008 LausanneTeam
2010 BirminghamFloor Exercise
2011 BerlinHorizontal Bar
2016 BernParallel Bars

Marcel Van Minh Phuc Long Nguyen (born 8 September 1987) is a German gymnast. In 2012, he became an Olympic silver medalist after competing at the 2012 London Olympic Games. He's a soldier (currently ranked Corporal) in the Bundeswehr (German military) since July 2007, beginning when he was training in the Bundeswehr Sports Development Group (Sportfördergruppe der Bundeswehr) in Munich.[1][2]

Sporting career

Born in Munich, to a German mother and a Central[3] Vietnamese father, Nguyen began gymnastics at the age of four, and at seven years of age, joined TSV Unterhaching. Since 1995, he has trained at the regional training center in Munich. Since 1997, Nguyen was part of the squad perspective, where Andreas Hirsch and Jens Milbradt were his coaches. He rose quickly from the D- to B-squad. Since 2002, he has started for the Junior National Team. In 2005, Nguyen was the German junior champion on parallel bars, runner-up on rings and third in the vault. That same year he took part in the World Championships in Melbourne for the first time and placed 16th on the parallel bars. After the World Cup, Nguyen spent a year at the sports boarding school in Stuttgart in order to prepare with his teammates under the coaches Anatoli Jarmovski and Klaus Nigl for the 2006 World Championships in Aarhus.

In the 2012 London Olympic Games, Nguyen won two Olympic silver medals after competing in the Men's artistic team all-around, individual all-around, floor and parallel bars. Nguyen collected the first all-around gymnastics medal for Germany since the 1936 Summer Olympic Games held in Berlin. His second silver medal was on the individual apparatus final of parallel bars, and the German team all-around finished in 7th place. Lastly, he finished in 8th place on the floor individual apparatus final, an event, for which he had little time to prepare and initially not qualified but was brought as first reserve last minute to complete the roster of the event final, after another athlete who had qualified for the final withdrew due to injury. At the European Championships in 2014, he placed 4th on the team, but failed to qualify for any of the individual finals. In September 2014, he was at the home championships in Stuttgart on parallel bars and rings which is where he tore his ACL.[4]

After his ACL injury, Nguyen celebrated his comeback at German national championships in Giessen, where he was qualified to take part at the World Championships 2015 in Glasgow. Although the German team was not directly qualified for the Olympic Games 2016, Nguyen participated at the Test Event of Olympic Games in April 2016. The German team won that round and got the right to participate in the Olympics. The last events before the Olympic Games were quite successful for Nguyen — the bronze medal on the parallel bars with 15,566 at the European Championships in Bern and gold at the German national championships at the rings. That was the 7th title of Nguyen at this apparatus. For the first time since 2009, he did not win the gold medal on the parallel bar and stayed second behind his teammate Lukas Dauser. This caused the second ranking in the overall competition as well but saved the nomination to represent Germany in the Olympic Games 2016.

Olympic Games 2016 brought Nguyen and his team the 7th place in overall teams ranking. During his routine on parallel bars, the new element was shown — "The Nguyen" is added to the Code of points (with a grade "E" which is higher as average) and brings 0,7 points to the athlete who completes it without mistake.[5]

Nguyen performed at the 2017 Artistic Gymnastics World Championships in Montreal and came in 7th on parallel bars with 14.700 points.[6]

References

  1. ↑ "Marcel Nguyen wechselt zum MTV Stuttgart". News article. Stuttgart, Germany. Stuttgarter Zeitung. 21 December 2012. Retrieved 28 April 2014.
  2. ↑ "Turnen: MTV kämpft um Marcel Nguyen - Sportmix - Stuttgarter Nachrichten". Stuttgarter-nachrichten.de. Retrieved 10 September 2016.
  3. ↑ Tấn Chương (11 August 2012). "Marcel Nguyễn giành 2 huy chương bạc thể dục dụng cụ về cho Ðức". News article. Radio Free Asia. Retrieved 28 April 2014.
  4. ↑ "International Gymnast Magazine Online - Germany's Marcel Nguyen Suffers Torn ACL". Intlgymnast.com. 15 September 2014. Retrieved 10 September 2016.
  5. ↑ "Olympic Gymnastics: Here Are the New Skills You Can Expect to See in Rio". Pastemagazine.com. Retrieved 10 September 2016.
  6. ↑ 2017 Artistic Gymnastics World Championships#Parallel bars
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