Kazan taught me that speed can dance: The journey to rediscover the breath of Vietnamese swimming

I stood at the mixed-zone barrier, where there were no spectators, only the sound of athletes' footsteps and the water still clinging to their shoulders. It was a July morning in Paris, and I suddenly remembered the moment I was frozen before Kylian Mbappé's burst at Kazan in 2026. The 19-year-old reached 37 km/h, bypassing the Argentine defense to score the 3-2 goal in a 4-3 victory. I abandoned my graduation thesis, wrote a 2,500-word blog titled "Mbappé and the dance of the invincible," comparing his movements to Usain Bolt's leg drive on the 100m track. The article was shared 12,000 times on Weibo, and a new sports media editor in Guangzhou contacted me to write as a contributor. Today, standing in the heart of the French capital, I realize that speed doesn't just know how to dance on grass—it also knows how to breathe underwater.

The context of this summer is not just an ordinary Olympic Games. It is the first time in decades that Vietnamese swimming has entered a generational transition with a team of young athletes trained more systematically, with physical foundations and techniques approaching Asian standards more closely. But the real story is not about specific medals or achievements. It lies in how we reassess the entire training system, from the old pools in provincial towns to the national training centers gradually being upgraded. When I follow my matches, I notice something: Vietnamese athletes do not lack determination, but they lack a common language to connect technique with bodily sensation.

In the emptiness, I hear the breath of the match more clearly. At the pool area in Paris, I spent three days observing young Vietnamese athletes in supplementary training sessions. What I focused on was not dry split times or technical parameters, but how they kicked, how they rotated their shoulders, how they maintained breathing rhythm between two arm strokes. There was a 17-year-old athlete, named Minh, swimming 200m freestyle with a turn technique full of errors, but in the final stroke, he had a moment I could only call "the silence of water"—when all movements became smooth, no more water breaking, only steady breathing. That is the moment I learned from Kazan: speed is not in the seconds but in how each arm stroke becomes a dance step.

The biggest difference between Vietnamese swimming and Asian powerhouses is not in physical fitness or basic technique, but in the ability to read the rhythm of water and transform sensation into racing strategy. When I watched Chinese athletes train at centers in Guangzhou, I saw they had an extremely detailed data analysis system, from entry angle, leg push force, to arm turnover frequency. But what impressed me more was how they connected those numbers with bodily sensation. Each athlete has a sensation diary, recording body state after each session, from shoulder muscle tension to the feeling of water on skin. That is the language of silence I learned from the pandemic season, when the Bundesliga played in empty stadiums and I recorded every sound on the pitch: the ball hitting the turf, the goalkeeper shouting instructions, the sound of boots scraping with each step.

The silent Italian only nodded, but the entire defense understood. I remember the story of Marcell Jacobs at the Tokyo 2026 Olympics, when the former long jumper unexpectedly won the 100m gold with 9.80 seconds. The whole newsroom wanted me to cover familiar superstars, but my instinct told me to follow this story, because it touched the beauty of transformation. I spent three days at the training area, interviewing coach Paolo Camossi and Jacobs himself. The portrait "The Silent Italian" was 4,000 words, not stuffed with data but focused on the fear of failure of a late-blooming athlete. The article reached 2 million reads, a 200% increase from the newsroom average. Since then, I trust emotional instinct when choosing topics, ready to skip hot news to delve into forgotten characters.

But there is a contrarian perspective I want to raise: specialization or versatility? In swimming, a trend is spreading in Vietnam—forcing young athletes to train across multiple strokes, from freestyle, backstroke, butterfly to breaststroke, hoping to find the "gifted stroke." I believe this is a strategic mistake. Based on my experience following matches, I notice that the most successful athletes in the world, from Michael Phelps to Katie Ledecky, all had a phase of deep focus on one specific stroke before expanding. They didn't start with versatility; they started with depth, then spread. In Vietnam, we are doing the opposite—spreading thin resources across too many directions, when we should be focusing on building a solid technical foundation for each individual.

Silence is not lacking language—it possesses its own tongue. I remember the 2026 World Cup in Qatar, when I stood in the mixed zone after the Germany–Japan match on November 23. Germany led 1-0 through Ilkay Gündogan's goal, but Japan came back 1-2 at Khalifa Stadium. I saw German players sitting stunned, eyes red; inside me churned frustration, disappointment, pity, but I showed nothing. I wrote the analysis "The Machine That Broke," dissecting Hansi Flick's tactical errors, but avoiding any heavy accusatory language. The article was criticized by a group of readers as bland, lacking edge, making me realize the thin line between empathy and indulgence. Since then, I have trained myself to control emotion in writing, separating myself from the event to keep a sharper view.

In Vietnamese swimming, I see a similar problem: we are too protective of the current training system, afraid that criticism will demotivate young athletes. But the truth is, without frank analysis of technical weaknesses, physical management, and racing tactics, we will keep repeating old mistakes. I remember an afternoon at a pool in Guangzhou, watching a group of young Chinese athletes training under an Italian coach. He didn't shout, didn't criticize, only quietly observed and took notes. After the session, he called each athlete over, showed them slow-motion videos, analyzing every small movement. He told me: "Speed is not something you force; it is something you release." That sentence reminded me of Kazan, of Mbappé, of Jacobs, and of all the moments when humans transcend their own limits.

The pandemic season was where the truest voice was heard: the sound of the ball hitting the grass. In swimming, the truest voice is the sound of water breaking when the final kick touches the wall. It is a sound that cannot be faked, cannot be hidden. When I heard the water breaking of Vietnamese athletes in Paris, I heard effort, but I also heard a lack of confidence. They swam as if afraid of making mistakes, afraid of not meeting targets, afraid of disappointing those who invested in them. That reminded me of the lesson from the Ruhr derby in 2026, when Dortmund beat Schalke 4-0 in an empty stadium. I heard no cheers from the stands, but I heard the ball hitting the turf, the goalkeeper shouting instructions, the sound of boots scraping with each step. Those were the truest sounds, untainted by the noise of the crowd.

So the question is: how can Vietnamese swimming find its own breath again? I don't have an absolute answer, but I have a suggestion: start by listening. Listen to the breathing of athletes in the earliest training sessions, listen to the water breaking when they touch the wall, listen to the silence between two arm strokes. That is where all change begins. When I stood at the mixed-zone barrier in Paris, I saw a young Vietnamese athlete sitting alone, looking down at the water. He said nothing, only quietly observed. I don't know what he was thinking, but I know that in that moment, he was listening. And that is the beginning of every dance of speed.