The Great Vietnamese Star Drought: Fading Veterans and the Rise of Regional Rivals at the 2026 Asian Games

At the athletics track of the 2026 Asian Games, a 31-year-old woman, Nguyen Thi Oanh, is running for her country one last time. Her event is the 3000m steeplechase. Looking at the final lineup, it was clear she was far behind her best times. Vietnamese sports journalists wrote that she had almost no hope of winning a medal. Yet the entire stadium watched her. She is the last representative of that golden generation that brought Vietnam three athletics medals at the 2026 Jakarta Asian Games. Eight years later, in 2026, Vietnam's athletics team has entered these Games with only the lingering light of old stars. No new faces, no new stars. This scene is not just the story of one nation's sporting decline; it mirrors a harsh reality of regional sports politics. From my years of observing international track and field, I can say that when a country's athletics pipeline dries up, it creates lasting damage not only in results but in the nation's sporting confidence. Vietnam's sports system is state-controlled and centrally planned. Athletes for each international competition are selected through a federation-determined quota system. The 2026 Jakarta Asian Games was the greatest success of this system. That year, Bui Thi Thu Thao won gold in the women's long jump. Quach Thi Lan won gold in the 400m hurdles—though upgraded from silver after Bahrain's Kemi Adekoya's doping disqualification. Nguyen Thi Oanh won bronze in the steeplechase. In swimming, Nguyen Huy Hoang won silver, racing China's Sun Yang stroke for stroke. But behind this success lurked a secret truth that has become clear in 2026. Vietnam's golden generation was essentially a collection of a few extraordinary individual talents, not the product of an organized youth development system. According to International Olympic Committee data, Vietnam has never won an Olympic athletics medal. Even in swimming, Anh Vien's entire career yielded only two Asian Games bronzes, considered a massive achievement in Vietnamese sports history. By global standards, this ceiling is extremely limited. It is against this backdrop that Vietnam's athletics team enters the 2026 Games with a completely different reality. Analyzing the entry lists for the 2026 Asian Games athletics events reveals a brutal truth. In both men's and women's categories, Vietnam has no athlete under 25 with the physical and mental capacity to compete internationally. Yet Vietnam cannot find successors to athletes like Quach Thi Lan in the women's 400m hurdles or Vu Thi Huong in women's sprinting. Analyzing Vietnam's domestic junior athletics championship results over the past five years shows that no female athlete has run under 11.80 seconds in the 100m sprint. Meanwhile, Thailand's Puripol Boonson has run times in the men's 100m approaching the Olympic standard. This comparison is not just about speed difference; it is the difference between two philosophies of sports development. Vietnam's state system has long concentrated resources on current stars, effectively drying up the youth pipeline. In the 2026 Asian Games, Vietnam's athletics team entry list contains 18 athletes with an average age of 28.4 years. Only 7 are female athletes. This number is significantly lower than in 2026, when the team had 14 female athletes. This decline directly indicates a lack of investment in youth development. Vietnam's sports diplomacy has long operated on a star-dependent model. The core problem with this model is that when stars retire or lose form, the entire system collapses. In the 2026 Games, Vietnam's most experienced athletics team member is Nguyen Thi Oanh. She is 31. Competing in the 3000m steeplechase at this age means being past the peak performance window. Yet Vietnam's athletics federation has kept her as the team's main hope. Because there is no alternative. Meanwhile, another member of the 2026 golden generation, Quach Thi Lan, has effectively stepped away from competitive athletics by 2026. Her personal best in the 400m hurdles was 55.54 seconds, which was enough to win gold in Jakarta in 2026. But in the 2026 global rankings, this time would not take any female athlete to an Olympic final. Vietnam's sports administration has long avoided this truth. According to an international athletics statistics organization, since 2026, no female athlete from Vietnam has progressed beyond the semifinal stage in the 400m or 400m hurdles at an Asian Championship or equivalent international event. This statistic proves the problem is not one generation's failure, but a systemic crisis. Here is my most important observation. Vietnam's sporting decline at the 2026 Asian Games is not just Vietnam's story. It signals a dramatic reordering of the entire Southeast Asian sporting geography. Thailand, Indonesia, and the Philippines have already filled Vietnam's void. Thailand's Puripol Boonson is now one of Asia's fastest male sprinters. The Philippines' Carlos Yulo is a world-class gymnastics star. Indonesia's badminton team still competes on the world stage. In comparison, Vietnam's only internationally competitive event is wushu, a marginal event in the Olympic movement. In other words, Vietnam has built the foundation of its sporting prestige on an event with limited global recognition. This strategic error will have profound effects on Vietnam's sports diplomacy in the long term. Because winning medals in Olympic events is the true indicator of a country's sporting strength. Competing in events like badminton, gymnastics, or sprinting means proving one's capability on the global stage. Winning medals in wushu or sepak takraw is regionally important, but the weight of those medals on the global sports map is much lower. Vietnam's sports policymakers must recognize this difference. When I was covering the athletics events at the 2026 Jakarta Asian Games, I spoke with Vietnamese sports journalists. Many of them already expressed concerns that this golden generation might not last. Because according to them, Vietnam's youth sports system was not receiving adequate investment. Eight years later, those fears have come true. After the release of Vietnam's athletics team entry list for the 2026 Asian Games, an official from the country's sports federation, speaking on condition of anonymity, said, 'We knew this situation would come. But we could not create an alternative.' This admission is evidence of the long-standing failure of Vietnam's sports administration. Athletes cannot be blamed. They have given their maximum. The blame lies with the system that for a decade has only planned on paper for youth development, never implementing it on the ground. A country's true sporting strength is built at the grassroots, in district-level school meets, on small-town tracks. Not investing there and relying only on top stars is like building a tower on sand. The time to learn from Vietnam's crisis is now. Midway through the 20th Asian Games, it is clear that Vietnam must plan a full sports development cycle for the next four years. The 21st Asian Games in 2030 could be the stage for that evaluation. By then, Vietnam's sports leadership must answer three fundamental questions. First, how to create a permanent system for identifying and developing youth talent at district and divisional levels outside the central quota system. Second, what can be learned from the successful models of Thailand, Indonesia, and the Philippines, especially their youth Olympic programs and school-based competition systems. Third, how to utilize retiring stars as coaches and mentors to quickly fill the pipeline gap. Finding answers to these questions requires Vietnam's sports administration to understand that sporting success is not an isolated event. It is an ongoing process requiring investment at every stage. Stars are not simply born; they must be made. Vietnam once could make stars. The question now is whether it has lost that capacity. Finding the answer will require looking beyond the field—to school grounds, district stadiums, those places where the future Oanhs, Lans, or Huongs are training today.