Thuy Linh and the applause of an empty court: The story behind a confession

I still remember that afternoon, when the shuttlecock hit the racket face and sounded like a sigh. Not in a brightly lit arena, not before thousands of spectators raising their phones. But in a familiar corner of a training court, where one could only hear breathing, footsteps on the wooden floor, and sometimes the heart of an athlete asking themselves how much further they could go. Nguyen Thuy Linh sat there, after practice, and told Dan Tri a sentence that I think will haunt me for a long time: "The Asiad arena is very harsh, it is not easy to win a medal." That sentence is not a complaint. It is the truth spoken by an insider, after three consecutive Asian Games and two Olympic appearances, after so many years standing on court without a single continental medal to call her own. And behind that short sentence, I heard an entire system, an entire sports sector, an entire generation standing before the biggest question of themselves. I have followed Vietnamese badminton since the days when Nguyen Tien Minh was still dominating the international stage, since when people lined up to buy tickets for a semifinal at a small domestic tournament. I remember the afternoons at Phan Dinh Phung arena, the feeling of waiting for a shuttle to fly overhead while my heart flew with it. Vietnamese badminton once had what was called a "golden era" of a single racket — a man with a powerful smash and a cold mind. But when that era ended, people realized they had not built a foundation thick enough to support a next generation. Thuy Linh grew up in that gap. She had no role model ahead to follow, no training system to support her, no long overseas training camps with foreign experts. She had a racket, a heart, and solitary practice sessions. That is the context I want everyone to see before hearing her words. Because when Thuy Linh said the Asiad was harsh, what she was really saying was not only about opponents from China, Japan, South Korea, Thailand, Indonesia, India — countries whose badminton level can take three years, five years, sometimes ten years of training to approach. What she was saying was about a more painful truth: that in Vietnam, a top national player has to swim in a strong current without a float. No international experts, no training pathway built to world standards, no training center that could be called a "center." Only practice sessions, self-funded flights, and tournaments where, every time she steps on court, she knows she is walking alone. Thuy Linh's story, after all, is the story of many Vietnamese athletes in sports that are not key national priorities. It is the story of a woman who chose to stand on a badminton court — a space where solitude can be considered a living condition — and patiently hit the shuttle back, day after day, year after year, until her name was mentioned on stages that Vietnamese people could not have dreamed of decades ago. But it is also the story of a country that has never truly invested in depth, only in short-term expectations. Because the Asiad is not just a field of technique. It is a field of systems. In a system, one can win by organization, by data, by sports science, by hundreds of experts sitting behind one athlete. In Vietnam, badminton is trying to win with a heart. I remember a friend who works as a coach once told me: "In Vietnam, every elite athlete is a self-directed film. They have to find their own audience, their own budget, their own motivation, their own way out of injury, and even their own way not to collapse." That sentence fits Thuy Linh so precisely it stings. She does not have a match-analysis team behind her, no sports psychologist traveling with her, no nutritionist following every meal. She has a racket and a belief. And every time she steps on court at a continental arena, that belief has to face something more fearsome than any smash: loneliness. But let me recount, slowly, what that interview truly said, because I believe behind a short answer from an athlete lies an entire structure of a sports sector. When Dan Tri asked Thuy Linh about her chances of winning a medal at the upcoming Asian Games, she did not say "I will try my best." She spoke plainly about the harshness. That is notable, because in Vietnamese sports, speaking plainly is often considered a lack of confidence, even a "lack of fire." But Thuy Linh was not speaking to offend anyone. She was speaking the truth. And I think an athlete brave enough to speak the truth about her limits is an athlete who has matured. A mature sports sector is not one that constantly declares medals. It is one that looks straight at the world rankings and knows where it stands. Let us look at where Thuy Linh stands. Women's badminton in Asia in recent years has become one of the most fiercely competitive sports on the planet. A female player wanting to reach the quarterfinals of an Asian championship must have movement speed of no less than six meters per second in change-of-direction phases, must maintain active heart rate at 85–90% of maximum throughout a match lasting over an hour, and must have the ability to return stably from all positions on court. To achieve those metrics, how many practice sessions are needed? The answer lies not in quantity but in the quality of the support system. That is where a Vietnamese athlete loses the advantage before the match even begins. I do not have exact figures on Vietnamese badminton's budget, and anyone who claims they do is speculating. But I know that in the countries Thuy Linh must face, such as Thailand or Japan, a top athlete can enjoy periodic overseas training, be coached by experts from Malaysia, Indonesia, even Europe, be monitored by video analysis after every match, and be supported by a professional sports medicine system. Those things are not luxuries. At continental level, they are minimum conditions. In Vietnam, they are dreams. I once stood in the hallway of an international tournament and saw the Thai badminton team bring several cases of analysis equipment, a taping specialist, and their own fitness coach. And in another corner of that hallway, I saw a Vietnamese athlete sitting alone, taping her own ankle, playing back on her phone the match she had just lost. That gap — the gap of hallways — never appears on the scoreboard. But it determines the scoreboard more than any smash. And here is what I want to say about the so-called "foreign experts." Thuy Linh, in the interview, did not demand. She did not say "give me a foreign coach." She only described the reality. But I believe anyone who understands elite sport knows that a Vietnamese athlete is teaching herself to defeat the training systems of an entire continent. It is an unequal battle, not because she is weak, but because she is swimming against the current without a life vest. What is admirable is not that she wins. What is admirable is that she is still swimming. There is a sentence I always think of when writing about athletes like Thuy Linh: "An empty court, but I hear clearly the applause of an entire era." That applause is not the applause in an arena; it is the sound of those who understand the value of standing up after every fall, of continuing to practice in silence, of believing in a journey with no guaranteed destination. Thuy Linh is one of those people. She has been to three Asian Games, two Olympics, and each time she returns, she walks back onto the practice court with the same focus. That is not an achievement measurable by medals. It is a quality measurable by character. And in Vietnamese sports, sometimes character is the only thing left to hold onto. But wait. I do not want this article to become a hymn to endurance. Because endurance only has meaning if it brings change. If Thuy Linh says the Asiad is harsh and winning a medal is not easy, the right question is not "why doesn't she try harder," but "why don't we create conditions so she does not have to endure alone." This is where I want to pause and speak about our system, not with outrage, but with observation. In Vietnam, elite sport is often organized in a scattered model, where each sport has its own federation, each locality its own training center, and each athlete is their own organization. This means that when an athlete reaches international level, no one knows where to place them for further development. Resources are dispersed, expertise fragmented, and collaboration opportunities missed. Meanwhile, in our rival countries, each top athlete is placed in an ecosystem of coaches, doctors, fitness experts, psychologists, data analysts, and sometimes a communications team following behind. That is the difference between a lone racket and a professional machine. And I want to add one thing about what I call the "national budget paradox." We often spend money on what can be seen in the tribute footage after each SEA Games — gold medals, achievement tables, short articles. But we rarely invest in what cannot be seen — youth training years, long-term overseas camps, foreign expert contracts, video analysis equipment, sports science research. And so we always stand in the position of a scholarship applicant, not a school builder. Vietnamese badminton has reached the Asiad on its own feet, and that is an achievement. But to reach a medal, more than feet is needed. There is one thing I realized over many years writing about Vietnamese sports: we often ask the wrong question. We ask "why didn't the athlete win a medal" instead of "what did the system do to help the athlete be able to win a medal." We look at results rather than process. We reward moments rather than invest in journeys. And so every failure becomes a reproach, every opportunity is missed, and every athlete carries a burden that does not belong to them. I once heard a foreign sports expert say about Vietnam: "You have very good athletes, but you do not yet have a sports sector." I do not completely agree with that sentence, because it is somewhat harsh. But I understand the meaning. A sports sector is not a collection of random talents. It is a system that produces talent, nurtures talent, and retains talent. It is a bridge from school to training court, from training court to competition field, from competition field to career. In Vietnam, such bridges in badminton are still missing. But I do not want to only speak of lack. I want to speak of what is being built, quietly. I know there are young coaches teaching badminton to children in small centers. I know there are parents still taking their children to practice every afternoon, even knowing their children's futures are not guaranteed. I know there are athletes like Thuy Linh who still choose to continue, even knowing medals may forever lie beyond reach. And in that continuing, there is something I call "responsible hope" — not vain hope, but hope built by sweat, worry, and sessions before dawn. I once had a conversation with a veteran athlete about the question "what kept you in sport." The answer was not medals, not money, but "the feeling of being myself on court." That is the most beautiful answer I have ever heard in many years of journalism. Because elite sport, in the end, is not a race for prizes. It is a journey of finding oneself through one's own body. The athlete who runs, jumps, smashes is not proving anything to others, but finding their own limits. And when they have found those limits, all that remains is how to surpass them — something no one, not even their country, can do for them. But Thuy Linh is not a confessional writer. She is a professional athlete, and a professional athlete needs professional conditions. This is where I want to turn to another angle — the angle I consider the biggest blind spot in Vietnam's collective memory when speaking of sport. We often view athletes as lone heroes who must overcome all difficulties through willpower. We are not wrong to honor that willpower. But we are wrong to treat it as normal conditions. Because in elite sport, willpower is never enough. Willpower is only a necessary condition. The sufficient condition is a system. And if we only honor willpower without building a system, we are honoring sacrifice instead of addressing the cause of sacrifice. That is the blind spot of collective memory. We remember medals, but forget the conditions that produced them. We remember shining moments, but forget the years in darkness. We remember names, but forget the systems that created them — or failed to create them. And so each generation of athletes must start over, without technical legacy, without organizational legacy, without knowledge legacy. They only have the legacy of endurance. And endurance, however beautiful, cannot replace structure. This makes me think of another question: if Vietnam had a real national badminton training center, with international experts, standard facilities, and a training pathway from age ten to twenty-five, could we have not just one Thuy Linh, but five? The answer, I believe, is yes. Because talent is not lacking in Vietnam. What is lacking is opportunity. Every year, thousands of Vietnamese children pick up a racket for the first time. Among them, how many could become international-class athletes? Biologically, perhaps dozens. In reality, we have only a few, and among them, very few can go far. That disparity is not a disparity of talent. It is a disparity of systems. And here is where I want to say something potentially controversial: I do not believe an Asiad medal is the right goal for Vietnamese badminton at this moment. I believe the right goal is to build a system capable of producing athletes capable of competing for Asiad medals within the next ten years. That is a less glamorous goal, less noticed by media, and impossible to declare at a press conference. But it is the only goal that can change the situation. Because if we continue seeking medals by relying on a few outstanding individuals, we will always be in a state of scarcity — lacking athletes, lacking experts, lacking time, lacking everything. If we build a system, medals will come as a natural consequence, not as a miracle. I know some will say we do not have money. But I do not think it is a money problem. It is a priority problem. A country that spends trillions of dong on international sports events, on tournaments hosted domestically, on short-term training camps, but does not spend a few dozen billion on a long-term training center is prioritizing image over substance. And in sport, image never replaces substance. You can organize a grand tournament, but if you have no athletes to compete, that tournament is just an empty stage. This brings me back to Thuy Linh's story. She does not need a stage. She needs a path. And that path cannot be built with praise, with articles, with promises. It must be built with budget, with experts, with time, with patience. It must be built by people who understand that elite sport is not a talent contest, but a scientific project. And in a scientific project, every brick matters — from the first brick of a child picking up a racket in a village court, to the last brick of an athlete standing on the podium at a continental arena. I have said that each of my articles is a letter to the youth. And in this letter, I want to send young Vietnamese people a message: do not let words like "it is not easy to win a medal" discourage you. Understand that Thuy Linh's sentence is not a surrender. It is an invitation. An invitation to join the work of building — not to become the next medal winner, but to become the next path builder. Because sport does not only need athletes. It needs coaches, analysts, sports doctors, psychologists, journalists, managers, and knowledgeable fans. Each of them is a brick. And if we have enough bricks, we will have a path. But I also want to send young people a warning. Do not let scarcity become an excuse. I have seen many young people say "in Vietnam that cannot be done, because conditions are lacking." Sometimes they are right. But sometimes they are hiding their own laziness — the laziness of one who does not want to start from zero. Thuy Linh had no conditions. But she still stood at the Asiad. That is not a miracle. It is the result of not using scarcity as an excuse. And if one person can do that, a generation can too — if they choose to begin. I remember a young reader once asked me: "Uncle, do you think Vietnam will win a badminton medal at the Asiad?" I was silent for a moment. Then I answered: "I do not know. But I know that every time a young person picks up a racket, that chance increases a little." That answer may sound like an evasion. But I think it is the truth. In sport, the future is not decided by one match. It is decided by millions of quiet practice sessions, millions of small decisions, millions of bricks laid without anyone watching. And when the medal comes, it does not come from nowhere. It comes from all those bricks. So what about Thuy Linh? Where will she go? The answer is: she will continue. Not because she is certain to win a medal, but because she believes in her journey. In a sports sector where results are placed above process, one who believes in the journey is a brave person. And in a country where athletes are often judged by medals, one who continues to compete without medals is very brave. Thuy Linh is one of those people. She does not need our pity. She only needs our understanding. And if we understand, we will see that her value lies not in the medal she might win, but in the path she has opened for those who follow. There is one thing I always believe about Vietnamese sport: we are in a transition period. The current generation of athletes is no longer one that must self-teach everything from scratch, like their predecessors. They have the internet, they have video, they have opportunities to access international knowledge. They can rewatch matches of the world's top players and analyze every shot. They can train with foreign coaches on short camps. They can access sports science through open materials. That is a great advantage the previous generation did not have. But that advantage only matters if it is organized. If we let each athlete grope alone in the open world of knowledge, we will have good individuals but not a good sports sector. If we can organize that knowledge — turn it into curricula, into training programs, into systems — we can make a leap. And here is what I want to say to Vietnam's sports administrators: you have a historic opportunity. You have a generation of athletes ready to learn, ready to sacrifice, ready to go to the harshest arenas. What you need to do is place the right brick in the right place. That is the work of administrators, not athletes. And if you do not do it, we will forever have lonely Thuy Linhs, people who must swim in strong currents and find the shore themselves. I recall the story of the wool scarf on the Luzhniki night. A Russian woman knitted throughout the match, not looking at the field, until her team lost and she stopped her needles. I wrote about her hands, not the match. And I think Thuy Linh's story also needs to be written that way — not about the medal, but about the hands holding the racket, the feet moving in silence, the eyes looking straight at the opponent without flinching. Because the medal, if it comes, is only a result. The hands, feet, and eyes are the human being. And in sport, the human being always matters more than the result. The human being is what remains after all matches end. The human being is what remains after all medals are forgotten. I have followed Vietnamese badminton through five Games, through many generations of athletes, through many wins and many losses. And what I have learned is this: the most beautiful moments are not the moments of victory. They are the moments when a person dares to stand up while everything seems against them. Thuy Linh stands at the Asiad, against stronger opponents, in a system that does not support her, and she speaks the truth about her circumstances. That is a beautiful moment. It is a moment of maturity, of honesty, of courage. And it is the moment I want to record, because it will have lasting value longer than any medal. I do not know whether Thuy Linh will win a medal at the upcoming Asian Games. I do not know whether Vietnamese badminton will cross the continental threshold this decade. I do not know whether the conditions she mentions will improve. But I know one thing: if we continue to view sport through the eyes of someone who only cares about medals, we will forever be in a state of disappointment. If we view sport through the eyes of someone who cares about the path, we will see that every step has value, every effort is worth honoring, and every athlete is part of a story larger than themselves. "An empty court, a full heart." I used that phrase for a project during COVID, when Lach Tray Stadium closed and Hai Phong fans sat at home alone. I think it also fits Vietnamese badminton. The badminton court at the Asiad may be empty of Vietnamese spectators, but the Vietnamese heart is full. Full of hope, full of worry, full of pride, full of regrets not yet named. And on that empty court, a woman holds a racket. She does not stand alone. Behind her are millions who cannot be in the stands but are always in the heart. And that, in the end, is what matters most. As I write the final lines of this article, I think of another afternoon, also at an empty badminton court. I stood watching a group of children practicing. They were ten, eleven years old, not yet knowing anything about the Asiad, the system, or the conditions a person like Thuy Linh must face. But they were laughing. They were hitting the shuttle, running, falling, getting up. And in that laughter, I heard the future. The future of Vietnamese badminton does not lie in the medal an athlete might win at the next Asiad. It lies in the children practicing on an empty court this afternoon. If we build a path for them, in ten years they will go where we cannot imagine. If we do not, they will forever be children hitting shuttlecocks on an empty court — talented, passionate, but without a path. That is what I want to convey through this article. That is what I want Vietnam's sports administrators to understand. That is also what I want young Vietnamese people to understand. Sport is not only a competition. It is a construction project. And each of us, in whatever position, can lay a brick. Thuy Linh has laid her brick. She stood at the Asiad, held her racket and fought, and spoke the truth about her circumstances. That brick will remain, in the memory of people like me, and in the path of those who follow. And so she has done what no medal could ever do: she has left a trace. In a world where everything is measured by results, leaving a trace is precious. Because a trace does not depend on winning. It depends on presence. Thuy Linh was present. She was present at the Asiad, at the Olympics, at arenas that Vietnamese people decades ago could only watch on screens. She was present as someone walking her own path, with no guide, no support, no one to lead the way. And that presence, in the end, is extraordinary. It does not need a medal to have value. It only needs to be seen. I write this article to see her. Not as someone who might win a medal. But as someone who has done what very few Vietnamese people have done: stood up, stepped out, and continued. In a country where sport still faces many difficulties, that is something worth recording. And in a world where attention is usually reserved for winners, that is something worth remembering. Because if we only remember winners, we will forget those who made the field for the winners. People like Thuy Linh made that field. I recall what a Hai Phong fan told me during the "Empty Court, Full Heart" project: "I don't need the team to win. I just need the team to play. To play truly, to play all out, to play as if it were the last match." I think that applies to badminton, and to Thuy Linh. She does not need us to promise she will win. She only needs us to see that she is playing. Playing truly, playing all out, playing as if it were the last match. And in her way of playing, there is a dignity no medal can replace. It is the dignity of one who stands on court and does not give up. So, Thuy Linh, if you read these lines, I want to tell you one thing: you do not stand alone. You may not see us in the stands. You may not hear our applause. But we are here. In Hai Phong, in Hanoi, in Saigon, in places you have never been. We are watching you, worrying for you, proud of you — not because you might win a medal, but because you are standing there. And the fact that you are standing there, on a harsh arena, in a lacking system, with a heart full of passion — that fact is already a victory. A victory no scoreboard can measure. A victory that belongs to you, and only to you. There is a sentence in the interview I cannot forget: "The Asiad arena is very harsh, it is not easy to win a medal." I have heard many athlete statements over many years of journalism. But this one is special. It is not a complaint. It is not an excuse. It is a declaration of reality. And in elite sport, looking straight at reality is the first condition for surpassing it. Those who do not look straight will never surpass it. Those who dare to look have a chance. Thuy Linh has looked. She knows where she stands, what she faces, what she has and lacks. And she continues. That is the posture of a mature person. That is the posture of a champion — not a champion of tournaments, but a champion of oneself. And that is a kind of championship no ranking can award." An empty court may have no applause. But in the Vietnamese heart, somewhere, there is a long round of applause Thuy Linh cannot hear. It is the applause of those who understand that medals are not everything. It is the applause of those who know that behind every step onto the court lies a long journey no one sees. And that is the applause she will hear — not with her ears, but with her heart. Because in sport, as in life, the only thing that can outlast a medal is the love of those who walked with us. And that love, unseen, unheard, unmeasured, is still there. Still full. And still waiting.