Comeback Kid Marcel Nguyen Fights His Way Back For Munich 2022
Marcel Nguyen is a professional gymnast, three-time Olympian, and as unlucky as can be. Two cruciate ligament tears, damage to his shoulder and a wrist injury. The operations were followed by repeated stays at rehabilitation clinics and the fight for his comeback. For the European championships in his hometown Munich, the 34-year-old is risking it all once more. We talked to Nguyen in an exclusive interview about his successes, injuries, comebacks and hopes for Munich 2022.
Once upon a time, Nguyen was a four-year-old boy in mother-and-child gymnastics who was later to have a career as a top athlete. It all began when the German with Vietnamese roots was registered with TSV Unterhaching, for whom he also competes today. As a seven-year-old, Nguyen practised gymnastics on his own, where his talent caught the eye of his coaches and he was encouraged to keep going.
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GOLDEN MARCEL
The training paid off. In 2007, Nguyen won bronze with the team at the world championships in Stuttgart. A kind of home game, because the then 20-year-old trained there at the national training facilities. In 2008, his first European championship medal followed in reverse order: silver with the team in Lausanne. Since then, through his hard work, he has been collecting precious metals like Goldmarie once did at Mother Holle’s (also known at Old Mother Frost).
“In 2010, 2011, it became clear that I was very good on parallel bars and that I also had a chance to win an international medal," the gymnast recalls. And so, after winning the European team title in 2010, Gold-Marcel scored his first major individual success and was crowned European champion on parallel bars in Berlin 2011.
"If you look at the apparatuses, they are completely different. Floor is something completely different from pommel horse, and so on. On one you need strength, on the other you need speed, jumping power." Depending on the given physical stature and one's own strengths, specialists thus emerge through the peculiarities of the disciplines. Therefore, all-around is an absolute challenge: "To be a good all-rounder, you have to be a mixture of everything." Nguyen was able to defend his European championship title the following year as a parallel bars specialist, yet he was also a fantastic all-around gymnast.
At his second participation in the Olympic Games, the now 34-year-old stood on the podium twice: silver in the all-around and silver on parallel bars. But the joy did not last long.
UNLUCKY MARCEL
About a week before the departure for the 2014 World Championships the ultimate shock rocked his world and the ground beneath him was - almost literally - pulled out from under his feet. A ruptured cruciate ligament in his right knee meant the end of his season, with immediate effect. The serious injury was not to be the last - not by a long shot. "I had already done all the preparation, virtually everything for nothing. That was immensely unfortunate, of course." The bad luck just poured down on the golden boy. Even today, he has no words to explain the disappointment and pain in its entirety.
No wonder, because "you are out for about a year with a cruciate ligament tear. That's a very, very long time in competitive sport." So, in addition to the sudden end of the season, the upcoming season is also at risk with the diagnosis - the maximum penalty for any athlete. "You have to get out of that hole first." After the operations, Nguyen started all over again, like in mother-child gymnastics. Step by step, he had to work his way back to trusting his knee to do twists and somersaults.
He celebrated his international return in the 2016 Olympic year with a European championship bronze medal on parallel bars. In 2018, Nguyen competed at the first edition of the European Championships in Glasgow. "The first European Championships were cool. I didn't know exactly how it would work. It's a bit like the Olympic Games. You follow the other sports, [...] you're part of something." The next stop was supposed to be another home World Championships in Stuttgart. But bad luck caught up with him again.
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Three weeks before the World Championships in autumn 2019, just like five years before, his season was cut short. Nguyen had to cancel his start with a heavy heart due to a shoulder injury. "I had shoulder problems for a long time, and I knew that sooner or later the shoulder wouldn't take it anymore. But of course, the timing was once again very unfavourable." His shoulder had been bothering him for almost three years at that point.
"It was definitely very hard for me. Because I was finally really well prepared again for this world championship." And again, a calendar year of deprivation, training sessions and sheer time spent on nothing. Nevertheless, unlucky Marcel was not spared the following realisation: "A shoulder operation is a bit worse than a knee operation, because we have four apparatuses on which you basically need the upper body. And for the knees, it's only two events with jumps." The future of the parallel bars specialist was uncertain from one day to the next.
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COMEBACK 2020, COMEBACK 2021
"I think as an athlete you always need a goal to prepare for, otherwise you just don't know what you're doing it all for." The next major event the unlucky gymnast focused on was supposed to be his fourth Olympic Games. Italian gymnast Vanessa Ferrari was also fighting for her comeback. In an exclusive interview, she told us how she was able to achieve her greatest success since 2006 in Tokyo and what the gymnastics world can expect from Munich 2022. Nguyen was also hoping for the same twist of fate.
But a return to the big stage has been snatched from under the gymnast's nose twice now. Nguyen would have been fit for the planned 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo. But the pandemic got in the way of the (sports) world as a whole. "Then I tried again for 2021, but I tore my cruciate ligament again shortly before. And now my next goal is to compete here in Munich." The torn cruciate ligament and meniscus damage are just background noise.
MUNICH AND THE CHAMPIONSHIP AT HOME
Instead, Nguyen is looking towards the light at the end of the tunnel: European Championships Munich 2022. The multi-sport event combines nine European championships, including artistic gymnastics, and is the biggest sporting event in Germany since the 1972 Olympic Games. "I am really competing at home in Germany," says the Munich native. His successes in Stuttgart and Berlin prove that, but the Bavarian capital has significance of a special kind to him.
Our interview in Olympiahalle, where the gymnastics competitions will take place, triggers anticipation and also a little excitement. Because "you can already feel a bit of the atmosphere here, what it might be like then."
The dismount is to be a Tsukahara. Only a few can do the double somersault with a half turn. Nguyen has been doing the dismount for a long time, but in Olympiahalle it will be something special.
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A PREMATURE REVIEW
The dismount was supposed to be his last, and a chance to finish his fairy tale career with a magical touch. But this telling is not over just yet. Sixteen years in the national team have left traces in their wake. "Sport has made me the person I am. You learn discipline, you learn renunciation, you learn that you have to work to achieve something."
All the virtues he has learned from his fairy tale career are priceless and worth more than any medal. First and foremost, he shows patience in his comebacks: "It has always been worth it for me. As I said, I love this sport." And thanks to this very patience, Munich 2022 has turned out not to be the end of his career, but a reawakening in the loving arms of home.
Discipline, one of the necessary virtues for sport success, is essential because he trains two to three times a day for a total of five hours or even longer – though he wouldn’t have it any other way. This is also the case for his training colleague and Class of 22 athlete Felix Remuta. Nguyen thinks of the keyword "renunciation" because more than one or two weeks of holiday a year are not in the cards: Getting up early, basics in practice, strength and flexibility, healthy nutrition, technique training, practising connections to build routines, proper sleep, and getting up early to do it all again. Life has revolved around sport since childhood – and he doesn’t mind keeping it that way. Marten van Riel, Olympic bronze medallist in triathlon, explained something similar in our exclusive interview with him.
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Despite all his bad luck, Nguyen gives no room to vices and mortal sins. Gold-Marcel radiates with light. Gold-Marcel overcomes bad luck with his virtues. And whenever he may leave this earth, he will live on and remain a part of the sport for eternity. His own p-bars element, a mount with a three-quarter turn into a handstand, was added to the code of points in 2016. The mount symbolises all the virtues and the fairy tale of Marcel in its entirety.
Dragons, eternal life and wizards won't be on show or catchable at Munich 2022. But you can certainly experience a fairy tale live. All you need are tickets, so get them here now - before it's too late.