Sepak Takraw Gold at ASIAD 20: When Victory Is Measured in Months and Years

The sepak takraw ball dropped onto the Nagoya court, and I sat there — a man who for thirty-seven years had known only badminton nets — suddenly realizing I could not grasp a quarter of what had just unfolded before my eyes. People kicked. People folded like shrimp and sprang back up. People sent the ball over a chest-high net with the instep of a foot, no racket, no shuttlecock spearing into the floor like the smashes I had narrated hundreds of times. There was only the sound of the ball striking flesh, steady, dry, and the scream of three Vietnamese girls as the final point was sealed. An ASIAD 20 gold medal. Three names: Nguyen Thi Thu Trang, Nguyen Thi Khanh Ly, and a third person whom the news report I read that morning did not bother to write down. I noticed that silence before I noticed the number. And in a profession that taught me the court never lies, I learned that sometimes what is left unsaid is the most worth saying. For thirty-seven years standing on the edge of courts, I have witnessed Vietnam's sport break into tears more than a few times. But there is one thing fans rarely see: after every medal, a paperwork machine begins to turn. It turns slowly, quietly, and it decides much of the material life of the person who just triumphed. Sepak takraw is a strange sport in its own way. People play it with feet, head, shoulders, but never with hands. It was born in Southeast Asia, and on the continental stage it remains a playground traditionally dominated by Thailand, Myanmar, Malaysia, and Indonesia. A Vietnamese gold medal here, therefore, is no small matter. ASIAD 20 took place in Nagoya, Japan. It is the Asian continental multi-sport Games organized by the Olympic Council of Asia, gathering thousands of athletes from across the continent. For sepak takraw, it is one of the most prestigious arenas — no world championship for this sport receives the same broad media coverage as an Asian Games. And when the three Vietnamese girls stepped onto the highest podium, that machinery began to turn. I read the report about the rewards, and I realized I was reading a document belonging to a world entirely different from the one I knew. No score. No opponent. Not a single play described. Only numbers, decrees, decisions of a people's council, and a reward structure I needed to read several times to fully understand. That was when I understood: the real problem here was not on the court. It was in documents no one watches on television, yet they decide the fate of the person who just shone. Let us begin at the lowest tier, the one the state guarantees every athlete, regardless of which province they come from. Government Decree 349/2026/ND-CP sets the achievement bonus levels and special preferential treatment for athletes achieving results at international arenas. For an ASIAD gold medal, each athlete receives 280 million VND. This is a one-time bonus, paid immediately, clear, dependent on no other condition. But the most interesting part of this decree is not the 280 million figure. It is the special preferential treatment: 20 million VND per month, counted from the date of the result until the next Asian Games. If the gap between two Asian Games is forty-eight months, each athlete receives an additional 960 million VND — nearly a billion — from this monthly stipend alone. Added together, each athlete receives about 1.24 billion VND from the state budget. Times three, the team receives nearly 3.72 billion VND — the figure the press calls nearly four billion. I sat and recalculated several times to be sure. 280 plus 960 equals 1,240. Times three equals 3,720. The numbers match. At least at this tier, there is nothing ambiguous. But that is only the first tier. The second tier comes from Hanoi, where two of the three athletes are on the payroll. Resolution 82/2026/NQ-HDND of the Hanoi People's Council sets an additional reward: 140 million VND for each ASIAD gold medal. And another special preferential treatment at the municipal level: 33.5 million VND per month, also extending to the next Games. By the same forty-eight-month frame, Hanoi's monthly stipend for each athlete reaches 1.608 billion VND. Adding the 140 million bonus, each athlete with a Hanoi registration receives about 1.748 billion VND more from the city. This is where I had to stop the longest. Nguyen Thi Thu Trang and Nguyen Thi Khanh Ly — the two names that were written. They are athletes on the Hanoi payroll. Adding both tiers, each of them receives about 2.99 billion VND. The third person — the one not named — receives only the state budget portion, about 1.24 billion VND. The gap between them is not a few dozen percent. It is more than double. I do not write this to plead for pity. I write it to say that within the same gold medal, the same Nagoya afternoon, the same scream of joy, people walk away with different material fates. And that difference was not their choice. Then the fourth person, the one standing behind the three girls — coach Hoang Thi Thai Xuan — receives 50% of an athlete's entitlement. That is about 620 million VND from the state budget, if counted at the lowest tier. This figure is rarely mentioned in reward reports, but it says something worth noting: Vietnam's system has codified the teacher's reward tied to the student's achievement. That is a fair recognition rarely seen in many other sporting systems. In addition, there is a hot bonus of 200 million VND from the sports delegation, awarded on the spot, not included in the figures above. And rewards from the federation and sponsors — the amounts the report lists as undetermined. If I add it all up — state budget, Hanoi budget, hot bonus, excluding sponsorship — the total value of this gold medal far exceeds the nearly four billion figure the headline gives. It could reach more than eight billion VND for the whole team. I say could because I have no way to verify the federation and sponsor rewards. And in my profession, a figure that cannot be verified must be clearly marked as unverified, not inflated to look good. There is one more detail that caught my attention. The monthly stipend is not calculated on a fixed number. It is anchored to the interval between two Asian Games — to the next Games. That means its real value depends on the calendar, not on an immutable number. If the next Games take place earlier than expected, or if the cycle changes, the value of the stipend changes accordingly. A gold medal, it turns out, is measured in months and years. This is when I remember the line I often tell young people in my commentary class: at fifty-three, I understand that some defeats are worth more than a shallow victory. But I also understand one more thing — that some victories, to have real value, must be looked at squarely in terms of how they are paid for. I recounted above how I cried on live television in Changzhou, in the winter of 2026. I was forty-five then, and it was the first time in twenty years of my career that I could not hold back tears before the camera. I retell that story not to show off emotion, but to say I understand the moment a young athlete touches what they have chased all their life. But I also understand what happens afterward. After the glory, after the applause, come sleepless nights, silent injuries, unclear contracts, and the numbers written in decrees that athletes themselves sometimes do not finish reading. There is a lesson I learned from my own mistake. In 2026, when I hosted the Vietnam 0-2 Iraq match at My Dinh, I blamed myself for having painted things too rosily before the game. I apologized to the audience on air. And since then, I promised myself one thing: never let emotion override the truth. That is why I write this piece the way I am writing it — no rosy painting, no putting down, just reading the numbers and recounting what I see. So what does the ASIAD 20 sepak takraw gold medal really say? It says that Vietnamese sport has built a reward system with structure, with tiers, with clear rules. This is a step forward compared to when I first entered the profession, when rewards were often given by inspiration and negotiation. It also says that system still has dark patches. An athlete not on the payroll of a major city receives less than their teammate, even standing on the same podium. This raises a question of fairness I dare not answer on my own: should rewards be calculated by achievement, or by the place that pays the salary? And it says that the real value of a gold medal is not the figure in the headline. It is in the guaranteed months and days, in the extended stipends, in the hot bonuses handed out on the night of victory. It is in the fact that a young girl can train for four more years without worrying about food and clothing. There is one thing reward reports almost never mention, and I think it is the most worth discussing. The stipend until the next Games sounds very generous. But it depends on two things the athlete does not control: the budget and the competition calendar. If the budget is cut, if the Games cycle changes, if there is a spending review, then the amount that seemed fixed could be adjusted or delayed. A gold medal, therefore, is not quite a cash sum — it is a promise extended over time. And any promise can be broken. I do not say this to sow doubt. I say it because I have witnessed far too many athletes, after a brief glory, return to ordinary life with nothing guaranteed. Some open food stalls. Some go teach fitness to children. Some disappear from the media and no one mentions them again. The pitch never lies; only our faith stays silent. I believe in those girls. But I also believe a good system should not make their faith depend on variables beyond their reach. My counterintuitive angle is here: the biggest reward the press celebrates — the nearly four billion figure — is actually the most undervalued part in reality. Because it counts only the state tier, while the real value of the gold medal, for those in Hanoi, is much larger. And for those not in Hanoi, the real value is smaller. The same medal, three different prices. I write this piece on an afternoon in Binh Duong, thousands of kilometers from Nagoya, and I think of three girls I have never met. I think of the unnamed third, who is perhaps celebrating somewhere, with a gold medal and an amount smaller than her teammates'. I do not know her name. But I believe the gold medal she won is worth as much as the other two's — on the court. And what I hope, writing these lines, is that this value will also be recognized fairly off the court. Because sport, in the end, is not a matter of numbers. It is a matter of people who dare to stake their whole youth on a shuttlecock — or a ball — not knowing what tomorrow brings.