Reaching world level in a sport that requires physical strength like volleyball is very meaningful for Vietnam - Photo: DUC KHUE
On the evening of April 26, VTV Binh Dien Long An Volleyball Club convincingly defeated its Chinese opponent BAIC Motor VC with a score of 3-0, thereby winning a ticket to participate in the 2025 Women's Club Volleyball World Cup.
And that is the third time within 1 year, Vietnamese women's volleyball has reached the "world" threshold, twice at the club level and once at the national team level.
Lack of spearheads but people are taller and stronger
How many sports does Vietnam have that are world class? Very few, with chess and shooting, to some extent futsal, and now women's volleyball, being reluctantly considered to have reached the threshold of "world class" (the familiar term for world class in sports).
In recent years, the media, experts and even the country's sports leaders have repeatedly analyzed Vietnam's lack of cutting-edge sports.
At the 2024 Paris Olympics, the Vietnamese team did not win any medals, with Trinh Thu Vinh being the name that went the furthest when finishing 4th in a pistol event.
From this perspective, Vietnamese sports clearly need to improve a lot and learn a lot from countries in the region.
But being sharp is not everything in sports. The Americans have not won any gold medals in tennis in the last two Olympics, far behind Eastern European countries such as the Czech Republic (2 gold medals), Serbia, Russia...
But the truth is that the US still has the strongest force in tennis. To properly assess the strength of a sport requires many factors. And even "sweeping" hundreds of SEA Games medals is also a factor.
The late Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew, in a rare speech about sports, said: "The medal race at major sporting events is a story of great powers, including technology, science, economics...
Every sport will eventually have world-class stars. But first and foremost, sports are to help people become healthier, have better physical condition, and have a more refreshing spirit...".
Taller - stronger - faster has always been the guiding principle for Vietnamese sports since the first days of returning to the international game.
Swimmer Nguyen Huy Hoang and Vietnamese swimming still lack many conditions to reach the Asian level - Photo: TTO
The early years
The 1989 SEA Games marked Vietnam's return to the regional level. Also at that year's SEA Games, the country's sports leaders had a real look at the huge gap between them and neighboring countries.
"They were better than me in every way, from height, muscles to arm and leg span. They knew they would lose before even getting into the pool," said former swimmer Nguyen Kieu Oanh, now deputy director of the Ho Chi Minh City Aquatic Sports Center.
That year, Vietnam won only 3 gold medals, 11 silver medals and 5 bronze medals from three sports: shooting, table tennis and boxing.
It can be seen that shooting and table tennis do not depend too much on physical factors, while boxing is a martial art with weight classes (Vietnam's medals all come from the light weight classes).
In games, whether it is speed racing, scoring or fighting, the physical factor plays a very important role. And to affect the physical factor is a vast problem of economics, technology, science...
It was not until the late 1990s and early 2000s that Vietnamese sports gradually asserted their strength in important sports such as athletics, swimming, soccer, volleyball, etc.
Typically, the Vietnamese women's volleyball team did not win its first SEA Games medal until 1997, while the men's volleyball team had to wait 8 years to do the same.
As for football, fans certainly have not forgotten the time when the Vietnamese team, whenever they met tall opponents with extremely simple crosses and headers, would simply "pick the ball out of the net".
Shooting is one of the sports that Vietnam has the opportunity to reach the top of the world. In the photo is Olympic champion shooter Hoang Xuan Vinh - Photo: TTO
World class dream
Retelling those ancient examples shows how long Vietnamese sports have had to go to get to where they are today.
Two decades after the retirement of the "first swimming queen" Kieu Oanh, the Vietnamese swimming world welcomes a completely different Anh Vien.
No longer feeling self-conscious about her physical condition, no longer feeling regretful about missing out on a medal by a hair's breadth, and no longer unfamiliar with new Western training programs and methods, Anh Vien became the dominant champion in Southeast Asia.
She advanced to the continental level, and was just a little bit short of being able to appear in the final swimming night at the Olympics. After Anh Vien, it was Huy Hoang's turn to create a similar miracle.
Overall, in the two most basic sports, athletics and swimming, Vietnam is still far behind the world level. But at least the inferiority complex is now behind us.
And in competitive sports, Vietnam has more or less a number of world-class athletes.
There is Le Quang Liem of chess, Trinh Thu Vinh of shooting (formerly Hoang Xuan Vinh), the female volleyball team, the male futsal team. Next is football, some martial arts, badminton… also approaching the continental level.
The quest for world-class status now boils down to complex issues of strategy and investment.
50 years is a long journey. And behind the SEA Games, Asiad or Olympic medals is a nation that is getting taller, stronger and more resilient!
Source: https://tuoitre.vn/the-thao-viet-nam-50-nam-mot-dan-toc-cao-hon-va-khoe-hon-20250427232238651.htm
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