Vietnam's Gold Thirst at ASIAD: September 26 and the Fragile Beats of Hope

As the final shot in the standing position faded, the shooting range held its breath. No one sang, no one clapped — only arms raised toward the scoreboard, a wordless banner in an atmosphere tight enough to suffocate. I have written many times that the fire on the stands never goes out; it just changes into arms. Today, that fire is trembling with thirst — Vietnam's gold thirst, after pressure-filled days with just one gold medal in hand. One gold medal — that alone says everything about the atmosphere around the Vietnamese delegation. After days of competition, the whole team has fallen into a state of "gold thirst," a phrase the media uses when expectations grow faster than results. More importantly, that pressure has begun to affect the athletes' psychology. This is what dry standings cannot show: the weight comes not from opponents but from the eyes of millions watching from afar. September 26 has therefore become a strategic day. A dense schedule of shooting, canoeing, athletics, archery and badminton is seen as a chance for a sudden boost. Fans no longer ask about bronze or silver; they ask where the gold is. That impatience creates an invisible pressure, absent from training plans but heavier than any physical drill. A knock on the door makes less noise than a drum, but today it opens the only door the entire delegation is waiting for. At the center of that door is Phí Thanh Thảo. International media have noted her bright face and intelligent shooting mindset, but her sporting value goes beyond appearances. In the 50m rifle three positions event, she has been given the role of anchor, leading the team in the race for a team medal. The event includes three positions: kneeling, prone and standing. From my experience following many games, the standing position always creates the widest score spreads. One missed breath, a slight tremor of the wrist or a mistimed blink, and the bullet can drift a full millimeter off target. What happens in the first two positions may look good on the scoreboard, but if the standing position does not hold, everything can collapse in an instant. In shooting, people say physical strength decides the opening shots, psychology decides the closing ones. For Phí Thanh Thảo, leading the team is both an honor and a real psychological test. As for individual gold, analysts see it as an extreme challenge. China has a super shooter in extremely high form; India, the defending champion, shows no sign of letting go. Mongolia and Iran also appear on the start list with respectable numbers. Looking at the event structure, Vietnam's best chance lies in the team event, where three people hold the rhythm together and support each other, rather than betting on one moment of individual brilliance. Canoeing is the second sport expected to relieve the thirst. Vũ Lê Thiên Hải must dig deep in the 500m kayak, a distance that demands smart power distribution over the first 250m before a decisive sprint. In such races, finding the rhythm is not a metaphor: the paddler who finds the water rhythm first saves energy for the decisive stretch. Alongside him, Hoàng Thị Hương is considered a medal hope, but she faces China's top candidate and a star from Kazakhstan, a country with a long canoeing tradition. The new mixed doubles canoe 500m event, however, is described as wide open. For teams without deep histories, this could be a narrow but real window. In canoeing, drawing an outside lane brings a psychological advantage: less wake from strong paddlers in the center. But what many viewers do not see is that the water surface between lanes is never the same. Every stroke creates small waves, and when many strong paddlers race together, the water becomes a wrinkled cloth. An outside-lane paddler may avoid some of that chaos, but must then take full responsibility for the course, with no one to follow. Over 500m, a single mistake in the first 250m is nearly impossible to correct; the body is already tired, and if the rhythm is lost, the paddler quickly starts fighting against himself. Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, with their traditions in this discipline, understand better than anyone the value of keeping the water rhythm in the most tense moment. In athletics, the story is not about medals but about building. Trần Thị Loan enters the long jump qualification with a personal best of 6.53m, while her rivals are around 6.70m. Hồ Trọng Mạnh in the triple jump has 16.33m, but the leading group has gone past 17m. The gaps of 0.17m and 0.7m may sound small, but at this level they represent a large difference in class. Vietnam's realistic goal is to improve, gain international experience and hope for a wildcard spot. From a long-term perspective, every jump now is a first brick, not a final destination. In archery, ASIAD qualification is an internal points accumulation race to branch seeds, so every arrow has its own value even if it does not directly decide a medal. In badminton, Nguyễn Thùy Linh, called a beauty queen by the media, attracts no less attention. On a dense day, her matches are physical battles; enduring long rallies and keeping her footwork rhythm matters more than powerful smashes. Crowd attention can energize her, but it can also turn small errors into heavy burdens. There is an irony in how we wait for medals at this ASIAD. Audiences are led by sweet labels: hot girl shooter, beauty queen badminton player. But those titles belong to the media industry, not to the scoreboard. They create attention, but not points. The gold thirst pushes the public to place all expectations on two sports and a handful of athletes — a concentration of risk that the numbers show is not sustainable. In the standing position, the more pressure, the easier the hand shakes. On the water, expectation does not make a paddle stronger. When someone is called the only hope, they carry a psychological load that should not be theirs alone. We often talk about athletes needing to overcome pressure, but few ask whether that pressure is even necessary. In countries with developed sports systems, people understand that medals are the result of a system, not a magic word. They do not pile all hopes onto one person because they know how fragile top-level sport really is. The counterintuitive point is this: sometimes the collective thirst becomes the very force that holds back individual ambition. An athlete stepping onto the range with the thought of winning a medal for the whole country is no longer themselves; they become a block of tension. The healthier view, I believe, is to accept that medals are not the only thing keeping a delegation in rhythm. Competitive spirit, perseverance and the desire to push limits are what create a lasting beat — the thing that, even before victory arrives, keeps fans feeling the team's story is worth following. On the stands of these sports, there are no drums, no collective songs like in football. But there is another beat: the breath of spectators following the final shot, the choked scream when a paddle crosses the line, the silence before the scoreboard appears. I still believe there is a drumbeat that keeps going after seasons of silence. Today, it does not sound from the stands but from the very hands gripping a nation's hope. The next signal will come from the official results of September 26. Will the final shot in the standing position hit the center? Will the 500m sprint arrive at the right moment? Will a delegation holding its breath turn its thirst into energy, or collapse under the weight of its own expectations? The answers will shape Vietnam's story for the rest of the ASIAD. When we cannot sing, we learn to listen to the team's breath. Today, a whole delegation is holding its breath. The only thing we can do is keep the beat for them — with applause, with flags, or with trusting silence in the stands.