Career
Nguyen made his first Vietnamese team, as a 15-year-old, the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens, where he competed in the men"s 100 m breaststroke. Swimming in heat three, he rounded out a field of seven swimmers to last place and fifty-second overall by two thirds of a second (066) behind Estonia"s Aleksander Baldin, with a time of 1:06.70. At the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, Nguyen qualified again for the second time in the 100 m breaststroke.
Nguyen challenged five other swimmers in heat two, including fellow two-time Olympian Sergiu Postica of Moldova.
He raced to fourth place by 0.14 of a second behind Lebanon"s Wael Koubrousli in 1:06.36. Nguyen failed to advance into the semifinals, as he placed fifty-eighth overall on the first night of the preliminaries.