2025 is a memorable year for Thi Lai (the S'tieng ethnic girl, Dong Nai province) when she brought home gold medals at the National Vovinam Strong Team Championship (April 2025) and the National Vovinam Championship (September 2025).
Not only that, Thi Lai ended 2025 with an impressive achievement when she excellently won the gold medal at the Vovinam World Championship (taking place in Indonesia in November 2025).
With impressive achievements, Thi Lai is a prominent face in the list of outstanding students, students, and ethnic minority youth in 2025 that will be honored by the Ministry of Ethnic Minorities and Religions on the evening of December 27, 2025.
Thi Lai shared that since childhood she has loved physical exercise, wanted to learn martial arts and started to stick with Vovinam since grade 5. However, the first difficulty he encountered came from the family when his mother wondered "why should I study martial arts for my daughter".
At that time, I had to convince my mother that this was a passion and ask for a trial period of 5 years. Now, I have proven that my choice is the right one, so I can no longer stop but encourage me to try harder" - Thi Lai said.
From there, Lai participated in movement classes, clubs and had the opportunity to be discovered and selected to the provincial national team by Martial artist Huynh Minh Hai - Head Coach of the old Vovinam Binh Phuoc team.
In 2020, when she just turned 13 years old, Thi Lai represented the ancient Binh Phuoc for the first time to participate in the National Vovinam Youth Championship. Due to my inexperience, I quickly stopped at the first matches. But after this tournament, the coaching staff still believes that Thi Lai has strong qualities and will and is always serious in training.
Not disappointing teachers, with an ideal height of 1m72, competing in the women's 66kg weight class, Thi Lai possesses a good physical foundation combined with a strong, intelligent and brave playing style, in 2022, Lai stepped onto the highest podium at the National Vovinam Youth Championship.
At the 2024 National Vovinam Championship, Thi Lai had a dramatic and classy match with the reigning SEA Games 32 champion Do Phuong Thao to bring the prestigious gold medal to the ancient province of Binh Phuoc after many years of waiting. From here, Thi Lai was also officially focused on the national Vovinam team.
Pursuing this sport, the girl born in 2007 said that it is inevitable that her body and limbs will be scratched, bruised, and injured. Even heavier, once, Lai's friend was "broken" while practicing with a male athlete.
Before each tense match, Thi Lai always tries to practice, study the opponent carefully and tells herself not to be subjective and disregard the opponent.
Talking about her future plans, the S'tieng ethnic girl said that she will continue to practice and aim to achieve the best results in the next tournaments in 2026 and further, conquer international tournaments.
