Many important changes
From September 2025, the Vietnamese athletics team has screened forces to prepare for SEA Games 33, ending training for many old players. In 2026, the team maintains a streamlined view, only focusing on 49 athletes instead of more than 60 as before, and at the same time adding many young faces who are training at national training centers. Among these, Le Thi Lam is one of the unknowns of Vietnamese athletics in the long-distance race. The young female athlete (21 years old) from Ha Tinh once expressed: "I am very touched to become a national athletics athlete in 2026. This is one of my efforts. For myself, the regime for national athletes according to new regulations has been significantly increased, so I am very assured of training and striving to achieve the best results.
Similar to Le Thi Lam, athlete Nguyen Van Tuan Anh (male high jump, 20 years old) is the face gathered for the first time in the Vietnamese athletics team this year. Tuan Anh has youth and potential for professional development in the future, so the coaching staff of the Vietnamese athletics team decided not to gather the familiar male high jumping athlete Vu Duc Anh (28 years old) in 2026.
This year, a clear change is also seen in the Vietnam Badminton Team. The Vietnam Badminton Federation and the team's coaching staff aim to focus on prioritizing training young faces with development potential.
Therefore, young faces such as Bui Bich Phuong, Nguyen Thi Thu Huyen, Nguyen Tat Duy Loi... continue to train to prepare for long-term goals. Meanwhile, many familiar players such as Le Duc Phat, Nguyen Hai Dang have not been called up to the national team this year.
Focus on improving professional quality
The Vietnam Sports Administration maintains a consistent viewpoint of focusing investment to improve the professional quality and achievements of national teams reaching Asian level at the ASIAD arena and approaching the Olympic level.
From now on, each national team player has received training salary of 550,000 VND/day and nutritional allowance of 400,000 VND/day. Before Decree 349/2025/ND-CP took effect, national team players when training were entitled to training salary of 270,000 VND (according to Decree 152/2018/ND-CP) and nutritional allowance of 320,000 VND/day (according to Circular 86/2020/TT-BTC).
Now, Vietnamese sports has clearly improved policies. When the quality of regimes and policies is radically changed, the quantity of athletes' expertise is required to be improved commensurate with the investment.
General Secretary of the Vietnam Athletics Federation - Mr. Nguyen Manh Hung said: "Since Tet, new regimes and policies have been applied. Therefore, the Vietnam Athletics Team must select athletes very carefully for training to perform national professional tasks. Each trained athlete will be aware of the responsibility and honor of being the representative face of the nation in international tournaments. When athletes enjoy higher regimes and policies, it also means they will have to show better expertise." Not only in athletics, the above viewpoint is expressed in many coaching staffs of national teams training in 2026.
In 2025, Vietnamese high-performance sports conducted training for 2,044 athletes (including 886 young athletes) in national teams. In 2026, the number of trained athletes is forecast to be streamlined and of higher quality.
From 2026, Vietnamese sports has witnessed many players parting ways with the national team such as Truong Thi Kim Tuyen, Tran Thi Anh Tuyet (taekwondo), Nguyen Duy Tuyen (pencak silat), Doan Thu Hang (athletics)... The separation of the veteran generation of players will also be an opportunity for young athletes to be replaced. Therefore, the coaching staff all have their own personnel plans to continue to improve their achievements in their sports.
