The rain of medals for Vietnamese wushu: Reading the four bronzes before celebrating

On the morning of September 23 at the 20th Asian Games indoor arena, I sat in the press section and watched Vietnam's wushu coaching staff place four bronze medals on the work table. Four bronzes, one sport, one morning. For a media writer, the material for celebration was complete: wushu brings a rain of medals for Vietnamese sport.

But I was not looking at the medal table. I was watching the head coach in the left corner of the arena, leaning over his notebook. There was no smile of a man who had just won big. On the page, he had underlined three names. All three had lost in the semifinals. Two lost to Chinese opponents, one to an Iranian.

I noticed another detail. In a quiet corner, female martial artist Duong Thuy Vi sat against the wall. She had just won a taolu bronze in sword and spear, yet her eyes were fixed on her three sanda teammates who had lost — not on the medal in front of her. That is the gaze of someone who has been through many Games, who understands that a bronze medal does not keep a person in the sport when the heart has grown tired.

Medals belong to the public. Losses belong to those inside. After ten years in this profession, I still marvel at the distance between those two worlds.

I did not come here to score goals; I came to record those who score them — and those who almost did before falling at the final line.

Before the analysis, I must explain something that most fans never get from the media: wushu at the Asian Games is two completely different disciplines.

The first is sanda, a full-contact combat style rooted in practical fighting. Fighters compete on a platform, using punches, kicks, throws, sweeps, and takedowns from a standing position. No ground fighting, no submissions, no mat wrestling, and prolonged clinching is broken by the referee. Scoring is based on legal strikes landed, clean throws, and opponent penalties.

Fans of professional kickboxing often assume sanda resembles K-1 or Glory. It does not. Kickboxing does not score throws, while sanda treats them as one of the highest-scoring techniques. Sanda fighters also cannot strike a fallen opponent — the referee stops the action and restarts both standing. This creates a unique tactical framework: manage distance for striking while being ready to step into clinch range for throws.

The second discipline is taolu, choreographed forms. Fighters perform set routines with weapons such as sword and spear, or empty-hand forms like changquan and nanquan. Judges score based on two groups of criteria: the difficulty of acrobatic movements — airborne spins, one-legged landings, weapon integration — and the execution quality of the entire routine. There is no opponent, no contact, no knockout. The result is just a score given by judges.

I stress this distinction because it determines how we read the results of September 23. Wushu became an official medal sport at the Asian Games in 2026 in Hiroshima, and since then Southeast Asian nations like Vietnam have always seen it as a source of medals. The Vietnamese team arrived at the 20th Asian Games with expectations to improve on previous editions. The men's sanda categories were rated as having better medal prospects than taolu, simply because taolu is a territory China almost completely dominates.

Vietnam's four sanda fighters — Dinh Van Tam (56kg men), Hoang Van Doan (60kg men), Nguyen Khac Kien (65kg men), and Nguyen Thi Thu Thuy (60kg women) — all passed national selection, won their early bouts, and reached the semifinals. Four semifinal berths across three men's and one women's category already shows the squad's depth. Not every Southeast Asian nation achieves that.

I remember 2026, when I wrote the series Euro on the Small Dirt Pitch about a 16-year-old striker trained by his U17 coach to play the false-nine role. I spent weeks observing how a local football community absorbed a new tactic. The boy's grandmother asked why her grandson kept running all over the place instead of staying in the box. Neighbors speculated endlessly. After three articles, the academy director officially introduced the model into the curriculum.

I bring this up because of a parallel: Vietnamese wushu is also running a system built on collective foundations. Four fighters reaching the semifinals is not individual talent alone; it is a pipeline stretching from provincial clubs to the national team. But reaching the semifinals is one thing. Standing on the podium after the final bout is another.

Start with the medal-allocation rule.

At the Asian Games, combat disciplines like sanda award bronze medals to both semifinal losers. There is no bronze-medal match. The losing semifinalists still stand on the podium, still receive medals, and still add to their delegation's total count.

I need to pause here, because this rule determines how we read the number four.

Four bronzes do not mean four wins. They mean four athletes reached the semifinals; three stopped at the final gate; and one — Dinh Van Tam — won his 56kg semifinal to enter the September 24 final. Without the both-semifinalists-get-bronze rule, this day would leave only one line in the record: Vietnam had one finalist and three semifinal losses to China and Iran.

I write this to keep the story honest, not to diminish achievement. Reaching an Asian Games semifinal — at a Games gathering nearly all of Asia's wushu elite, where sport is a matter of national standing — is a major result for any fighter. But to be truthful with readers, I must state clearly: three-quarters of this year's medal rain are structural bronzes, born from the tournament format rather than from beating opponents in decisive rounds. That is the difference between results and real competitive capacity.

Three losses, two nationalities, one wall.

Nguyen Thi Thu Thuy (60kg women) lost to Zhang Xiaoyu of China. Hoang Van Doan (60kg men) lost to Tang Sishuo of China. Nguyen Khac Kien (65kg men) lost to Shoja Panahigelehkolaei of Iran.

Two losses to Chinese fighters, one to an Iranian. This is the clearest structural signal of the day.

China is the wall of Asian sanda. This is not a new claim, but the way it repeated across two weight classes on the same day — two different Vietnamese fighters, fighting independently, meeting two different Chinese opponents — shows it is no coincidence. Draws change from Games to Games, but the depth of China's system does not. They have elite fighters in nearly every weight class. Whatever the draw, a Vietnamese fighter wanting a medal shinier than bronze will almost certainly face a Chinese fighter at some point — and in most cases, that is where they stop.

Iran is another story. Iranian sanda is famous for its wrestling-heavy style: they maximize the legal throws and takedowns, drawing on a wrestling tradition embedded in their sporting culture. Nguyen Khac Kien's 65kg loss fits that pattern. But I must admit a limit: the report provides no technical details on how Kien lost. No data on legal strikes, no accuracy rates, no descriptions of throws, no indication whether the fight was close or one-sided.

That means I face a combat analysis without data. I only know the final result: Kien lost and received a bronze by rule. No more, no less.

Dinh Van Tam — the one bright spot.

Dinh Van Tam was the day's rare highlight. He beat Fereddy Sinaga of Indonesia in the 56kg semifinal, secured his place in the final, and guaranteed himself at least a silver medal. The final takes place on September 24.

The way the media calls Tam a bright spot tells me something about the team's expectations. The men's 56kg category appears to be Vietnam's spearhead in sanda this Games — the only division where a Vietnamese fighter got past the semifinal and created a chance for a brighter medal shade.

But I cannot draw a technical picture of this final. The report does not confirm the name of Tam's opponent. If he meets a Chinese or Iranian fighter — the two strongest powers in Asian sanda