Giáp Trung Thang

About Grandmaster Thang

Leading experts laid the foundation of Vietnamese combat sports and shaped what they are today, and Grandmaster Giáp Trung Thang (Đại võ sư Giáp Trung Thang) is one of them. He started in taekwondo, helped build the Pencak Silat movement in Ho Chi Minh City in the 1990s, writing the teaching materials and training the next generation of coaches, then moved into Muay Thai in the mid-1990s, when few people in Vietnam had heard of it.

As a fighter he took bronze at the King's Cup in Thailand in 1996 and silver in Bangkok in 1998, the first time Vietnamese Muay was recognized in Asian competition. As a coach he guided Nguyễn Trần Duy Nhất to gold at the 2009 Asian Indoor Games. As an administrator he standardized tournaments and trained referees and coaches as Secretary General of the Ho Chi Minh City Muay Association, and in 2016 became the first Secretary General of the Southeast Asian Muay Federation. Today he is Vice President of the Ho Chi Minh City Muay Federation, the leading technical adviser to Vietnamese MMA, and Co-Chair of Technical and Host Management for the Showcase.

By the numbers

30 years

building Muay in Vietnam, since the mid-1990s

1st

Secretary General of the Southeast Asian Muay Federation, 2016

Former

Vietnam national head coach

2009

Asian Indoor Games gold, coaching Nguyễn Trần Duy Nhất