Inspiring Story of Vencelas Dabaya Tientcheu’s
Vencelas Dabaya Tientcheu is a true inspiration to athletes around the world. Born in Cameroon, Tientcheu grew up with a love for sports and began lifting weights at a young age. After moving to France to pursue his passion for weightlifting, he quickly rose through the ranks, becoming a European and World champion and an Olympic medalist. In this candid interview, Tientcheu shares his journey, his motivations, and his plans for the future.
- 2008 Olympic games – Silver medal 69kg cat.
- 2006 World Championships – Gold Medal 69kg cat.
2005 World Championships – Bronze Medal 69kg cat. - 2012 European Championships – Silver Medal 69kg cat.
2009 European Championships – Silver Medal 69kg cat.
2008 European Championships – Silver Medal 69kg cat.
2007 European Championships – Gold Medal 69kg cat.
2006 European Championships – Silver Medal 69kg cat.
Can you tell us about your childhood in Cameroon and your beginnings in weightlifting?
Weightlifting is a popular sport in Cameroon that I discovered during a national final at the age of 11. The Barcelona Olympics in 1992 reinforced my desire to do this sport. However, following a categorical refusal from my parents to practice this activity, it is at the age of 12 that I made my debut in this sport.
What difficulties did you encounter during your weightlifting training in Cameroon, and how did you overcome them?
The difficulty at the beginning was that I had to participate in competitions without the agreement of my parents. Then, the lack of infrastructure adapted to the age category was a hindrance to a daily training with a platform available for more than 20 lifters. My extracurricular time allowed me to go and train, but faced with the number of participants and the lack of space, I was forced not to practice weightlifting and to fall back on other activities such as wrestling and boxing.
When did you initially move to France and what made you decide to do so?
My passion and ambitions meant that the conditions in Cameroon did not allow me to dream further. In 1999 after my first participation in a world championship in Athens, I decided to move to France in search of better training conditions.
Can you explain your training and preparation for the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, where you won silver?
After my 5th place at the Athens Olympics in 2004 with the Cameroon team, followed by Ciro IBANEZ in this preparation, I made the choice to change my nationality to represent the French team. Once I joined the French team with my new staff Lionel GONDRAN, Franck COLLINOT, Vincent RIGAUD, and Franz FELICITE. We set ourselves objectives, defined our weak and strong points, identified the reference competitions, established rules of trust and communication within the staff. Along the way, following difficulties encountered such as my back injury and the difficulty of passing the 150kg bar in the snatch, we decided to expand the staff with a doctor, Philippe Levan, and a mental trainer, Gilbert AVANZINI. My determination to win an Olympic medal was so strong that I chose to isolate myself for 6 months from my family and friends in order to optimize my training time. We set monthly milestones in order to reach a total of 340kg which was the reference total for the last three Olympics to be on the podium. The days were very difficult, I felt a pain that burned deep inside me every day, but my desire to win an Olympic medal was stronger than this pain.
What were you thinking about during the competition and how did it feel to receive an Olympic medal?
During the competition I was focused on the bars I had to perform. But when I received my medal I had a very strong thought for my late father and in his last words when he gave me permission to do weightlifting openly he told me:
“If you have to do this sport do it well, but make the name DABAYA known all over the world”.
In the course of your career, you have participated in several European and World Championships. How do such experiences compare to the Olympic Games?
Nothing compares to the Olympics, the stress of an Olympic competition and preparation has nothing to do with the events that take place every year such as the European and World Championships. Because the World and European Championships take place every year whereas the Olympics take place once every 4 years and for minor sports like weightlifting the only place for a sportsman to make his mark is the medal or even the Olympic title.
How has weightlifting influenced your personal and professional life?
My career project is naturally grafted into my life project because my professional choices have always been made according to my sporting objectives, these choices have always been made in order to have more time to train even more. I, therefore, benefited from an agreement with the Ministry of Defense and then I was able to join the National Institute for Sport, Expertise, and Performance (INSEP) school to become a sports teacher.
What led you to change from being an athlete to a coach?
At the end of my career and even before that, I was motivated by the desire to pass on my experience and to share the sum of my experiences in my sporting career and my life as a man. I wanted to bring to the new generation this desire to win that animated me and to be able to dream even further, which led me very quickly to train with the aim of having a functional status in order to transmit my knowledge.
How has your experience as an athlete influenced your training philosophy?
We are facing a generation that had no dream because the performance of cheaters made podiums unattainable and my presence and my word took all its meaning because in front of them, they had a dream accomplished against cheaters.
What do you consider your greatest achievement as a coach so far? Working with a French team, one of the best in the world, is a demanding job.
I have only been coaching since 2015 and I think the best is yet to come because my greatest achievement would be to bring an athlete to the Olympic title because I have not been able to achieve that goal.
The job of a coach is a demanding one, because of our capacity to adapt to the daily life, to the uncertainties that performance generates, but if I had to answer your question more concretely, it’s only been two years that I’ve been fulfilling myself in this job, because I’ve had to learn to accept defeats in order to be even stronger.
What is your proudest moment in weightlifting?
The culmination of a preparation with a medal
Is there anything you would do differently in your career if you could go back in time?
If I could go back in time I would train for an Olympic title rather than an Olympic medal because it is a totally different approach between these two goals.
Can you please send a message to European weightlifters and weightlifting coaches?
Weightlifting is the most used sport for the preparation in every sport, let’s not be ashamed of our sport, be proud to do it and protect clean lifters because it is from a common will that we will stay in the Olympics.
By EWF Secretariat