Vietnamese swimmers and lessons from upstream strokes: Reading the race lines in the pool

Hook: At the 200m freestyle heats of SEA Games 32, I stood in the stands, tracking a young Vietnamese swimmer named Nguyen Quang Hai. He was nearly a body length behind the leader in the first 50m. The crowd around began to cheer impatiently. But I noticed something the scoreboard would never show – his eyes stayed calm, and more importantly, his stroke rate suddenly dropped from 44 to 40 in the second 100m. I don't read the scoreboard. I read the line in their eyes. Context: This is a story not just about one race, but about how we misunderstand excellence in swimming. Over the past two decades, Vietnamese swimming has taken a great leap: from a nation almost off the swimming map of Asia to having representatives in Olympic semifinals. Japanese coaches, programs sending athletes to train in the US, international-standard pools rising in Hanoi and HCMC. But the biggest question remains unanswered: are we training people who swim fast, or nurturing people who know how to race? Numbers cannot be denied: Nguyen Thi Anh Vien's achievements were a miracle, with 25 SEA Games medals. But modern sports science has proven that the comfort zone of conventional training is what holds back breakthroughs. The story here is the Olympic cycle and the pressure that major events put on every breath. Having reached continental standards, Vietnamese swimmers now face an invisible barrier: they are trained to conquer sprints, but not equipped to read the race – what I call the 'economy of motion' in swimming. Core: Let me analyze the tactics of a world-class swimmer to illustrate the difference. At the 2026 World Championships in Fukuoka, Romanian swimmer David Popovici broke the world record in 100m freestyle with 46.86 seconds. What stunned experts was not his final sprint, but how he paced the first 50m: Popovici didn't swim at full speed from the start; he kept a steady breathing rhythm, each stroke lasting 0.2 seconds longer than his rivals on average. In return, in the final 50, while competitors began to tire and their stroke rate spiked, Popovici kept a steady pace. That surge came not from strength, but from neurological control over his body. Swimming is not just a sport of muscles. It's a game of the nervous system. When I analyzed the technique of Arjun Singh – a 400m hurdler I once interviewed – I realized principles are the same: the body moves forward only when the brain knows how to conserve energy. The World Cup turns out to be a 90-minute relay race, and in the pool, every lane is a 50-second drama. Same discipline, but a good swimmer knows how read the water, how to tolerate pressure in the first 30m to explode in the last 10. I followed Nguyen Quang Hai's development – the boy from the SEA Games heats – through three major seasons. In 2026, he failed at the Asian Youth Games because he swam too fast in the first 100m of the 400m, making the last 150m a nightmare. In 2026, after a revised training plan, he started using longer underwater dolphin kicks, reminiscent of butterfly escape techniques. Interestingly, the change came not from strength training, but from learning meditation and heart-rate control. Outwardly, it was a tactical shift. Deep down, it was a cognitive revolution. In Vietnam, we tend to worship powerful strokes. Coaches often emphasize 'arm power' and 'arm tempo'. But the last five years of sports science have shown that for events 200m and above, swimming efficiency index matters more than mechanical power. A swimmer may take 47 strokes in 100m, but if each stroke only propels 1.2m compared to 1.6m of a rival, he loses 0.2 seconds per stroke. Multiply by 50 strokes in 1500m, the difference reaches 10 seconds – more than the gap from fifth place to champion. I once recorded the stroke rhythm of a Japanese swimmer during a training session at the aquatic center in Hanoi. He trained with a drag-measuring device, and I saw a clear difference: instead of constantly churning his arms, he spent time gliding underwater, fully stretching his body, and using his legs only minimally to maintain momentum. For a Vietnamese swimmer with a smaller frame, they need to optimize even further. That means we can't just copy foreign training plans. We must find our own path, a Vietnamese swimming identity. Crisis only takes away the arena, not the trajectory. When the COVID-19 pandemic erupted, many Vietnamese swimmers lost two crucial training years. A young swimmer in Da Nang, after all competitions were postponed, built a small pool in his own yard to keep his water feel. He ran on land, practiced yoga, endlessly rewatched videos of legendary swimmers. When competitions returned, he not only maintained his form but improved – because he had spent time understanding his body, and what the water wanted from him. Contrarian: Here, I want to go against popular opinion. Many analyses suggest that to become a swimming legend, athletes must grind out 100km per week. I believe this is not only wrong but harmful. Look at Swedish swimmer Sarah Sjöström, the world record holder in 100m butterfly. She admits her training volume is not extremely high, but she spends hours perfecting her wall turns. Her impeccable turning technique gives her a half-body-length advantage at every wall. Every race has 4 walls in 100m, so why not focus on the highest-return skill? In Vietnamese swimming, turns are often neglected. Training sessions focus mainly on high-intensity repetition. I have seen many swimmers lose up to 0.7 seconds per turn compared to international standards. 0.7 seconds times 4 is 2.8 seconds – enough to move from fourth place to a medal. A hurdler doesn't ask how high the hurdles are; only asks where the finish line is. Another blind spot is herd mentality in competition. In arenas like SEA Games, young swimmers often get drawn into 'swimming next to the competitor', adjusting their speed based on rivals instead of their own race plan. That causes a loss of pace control. A swimmer who executes his own plan even when trailing can overtake in the final 50. But a swimmer who chases the leader will tire quickly. I learned this lesson from an Indian hurdler who went against stroke pattern trends to create a feat. In Vietnam, we often speak of 'indomitable will' as an invisible weapon. But spirit cannot replace tactics. When I interviewed leading coaches, they revealed that many young athletes perform very well in practice but lack decision-making ability at major competitions. They don't know when to raise their tempo, when to slow down, when to use their kick off the wall. This comes not from lack of data, but from overly mechanical training. Takeaway: So where will Vietnamese swimming go? I don't have a clear answer, but I believe we need a revolution in coaching philosophy: respect data, listen to the body, and above all, teach athletes to read their own race. The flame we see in the stands is only a reflection of the quiet flame inside each swimmer's heart. The question is not how to swim faster; the question is how each swimmer finds their inner call. There is one detail I will never forget: after that SEA Games heat, Nguyen Quang Hai lost, finishing fourth. But passing me, he smiled and said: "I learned how to breathe properly when the water rises." I watched him and suddenly understood that this is when an athlete truly knows what he is doing on the blue lane. The transfer map is a map of sprints between two lines, but for a swimmer, that map will always be written by his own breath.