Ho Chi Minh City Sports with the opportunity to fly high and reach far

On July 31, the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism officially approved the project to organize the 10th National Sports Festival in 2026 in Ho Chi Minh City. The project to organize this event was approved early to help provinces and cities best prepare for the event, especially after many localities merged and there were major changes in the overall plan.

Play the role of host well

The fact that Ho Chi Minh City was granted the right to host the National Sports Festival after 20 years has a special significance in the process of building and developing sports in the city named after Uncle Ho. After the merger, Ho Chi Minh City will not only expand in space and administrative boundaries but also promise to make significant progress in governance, increase development potential and transform strongly in all aspects.

After the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism approved the policy of hosting the National Sports Festival from the end of 2022, over the past 2 years, Ho Chi Minh City has actively started working. For the first time, a locality was assigned the task of "writing" the draft plan for organizing the festival, clearly demonstrating the trust from leaders at all levels; at the same time, the city also felt its responsibility in shaping the content, scale and strategic direction of the festival.

Thể thao TP HCM với cơ hội bay cao, vươn xa- Ảnh 1. — Aerobics is one of the strengths of Ho Chi Minh City sports. (Photo: NGOC LINH)

In December 2023, the Ho Chi Minh City People's Committee submitted a proposal to the Standing Committee of the City Party Committee and the Standing Committee of the City Party Committee on the project to host the National Sports Festival. Accordingly, Ho Chi Minh City and neighboring localities such as Binh Duong, Ba Ria - Vung Tau, Dong Nai, Binh Phuoc and Tien Giang (now Ho Chi Minh City, Dong Nai and Dong Thap) will take on the responsibility of organizing the events of the festival.

Ho Chi Minh City has decided to approve an investment of more than VND1,000 billion to repair and upgrade facilities to serve the congress. Since April 2025, projects to repair and upgrade Phu Tho Sports Gymnasium, Phu Tho Sports Training Center, Hoa Lu Stadium, and Phu Tho Swimming and Diving Club have started. The project to build a new training center for talented athletes at Hoa Lu Sports Center and the project to renovate Thong Nhat Stadium will be constructed at the end of 2025. Some wards are also repairing and upgrading facilities and accommodation to serve the congress.

National Congress, Future Projection

For the first time in 20 years, Ho Chi Minh City will host the National Sports Festival - the country's leading sporting event, with over 15,000 athletes from provinces, cities and sectors expected to participate.

Not only preparing well the facilities for training and competition at the congress, the most important issue for the HCM City sports industry in recent times is completing and submitting for approval the project to host the National Sports Congress.

According to Mr. Nguyen Nam Nhan, Deputy Director of the Department of Culture and Sports, Ho Chi Minh City proposed to increase the number of events in the Olympic and ASIAD systems in the competition program of the 2026 National Sports Festival to clearly orientate key investment in high-performance sports of international stature.

"Organizing the congress with an expected number of 47 sports, from Olympic, ASIAD, SEA Games to traditional and emerging sports such as pickleball, shuttlecock kicking, stick pushing, tug of war..., Ho Chi Minh City ensures harmony between modern sports and national sports, closely linked to cultural identity and mass movements" - Mr. Nguyen Nam Nhan acknowledged.

Opportunities and challenges

Ho Chi Minh City's sports infrastructure is considered lacking and weak, not to mention many places have degraded in recent years.

However, Ho Chi Minh City does not intend to use the hosting of the Games to build new sports facilities that serve only temporary purposes. Renovating the existing infrastructure to serve the Games in real conditions, in the future creating sports facilities that will serve sports and the community for decades is a major challenge that Ho Chi Minh City strives to overcome.

By hosting the 2026 National Sports Festival, Ho Chi Minh City sports is not simply competing for the number of medals or the final ranking. The long-standing goal for Ho Chi Minh City sports is that in key sports, the city's athletes must ensure that they achieve at least 70% of the national top ranking.

From this foundation, Ho Chi Minh City strives with the country to plan, train and develop a force of top athletes, aiming for the continental and Olympic arenas.