Asiad 20 Opening Day: Teqball Makes Its First Mark, Karate Adds Another Bronze for Vietnam

On the curved surface of a teqball table, the ball may only be touched with the feet, thighs, chest and head; the hands are almost entirely removed from the game. On the morning of September 20, in the bronze medal match of the mixed doubles event at Asiad 20, Nguyen Hoang Minh Tan and Trinh Gia Nghi closed out their meeting with India's Dsouza Quimcy Joaquim and Beg Mohamed Anas Imran with a 2-0 scoreline. Vietnam's first bronze medal of this edition of the Games came from a sport most domestic fans still have to look up the rules for.

From the press area, I noticed a small detail. After every point, the two Vietnamese athletes did not celebrate. They turned to each other, touched hands, then readjusted their positions. There was no explosive moment, only the almost mechanical repetition of a pair who had trained together long enough to understand each other without speaking. Before they are players, they are people; before they score, they must overcome themselves.

Teqball combines elements of football and table tennis. Athletes must control the ball with their feet, head and chest on a curved table, demanding reflexes, individual technique and, above all, coordination in the doubles events. The sport was included in the competition programme at Asiad 20 for the first time. For a country without a professional teqball league system, winning a medal on its debut at the Games is a notable result, but it also raises the question of how Vietnam will nurture the sport after the Games.

In the mixed doubles event, Tan and Nghi did not meet luck; they met the right moment. The Indian pair had the advantage in physique and a deeper international record, but the way the two Vietnamese athletes divided the table between them was the real difference. The player at the back handled high balls and set-ups, the player at the front finished on the second touch. It sounds simple, but in teqball a single misstep in movement costs the whole point, and a 2-0 scoreline does not fully reflect how many times the ball changed direction in each rally.

What is worth noting is that the joy did not last the whole morning. Shortly afterwards, Ba Truong Giang and Le Anh Khoa lost to the Iraqi pair in the bronze medal match of the men's doubles event. Another medal had come very close, then slipped out of reach within a few dozen minutes. Some defeats are not measured in the scoreline but in the look on their faces as they left the court. That is where I write from.

Karate restored Vietnam's rhythm later that same morning. Bui Ngoc Nhi won bronze in the women's individual kata event after anything but a smooth path. She lost 0-5 to host athlete Ono Maho of Japan in her opening bout, then beat Choi Haeun of South Korea 5-0 and Leong Wai Yee Shannon of Singapore 4-1 to step onto the podium.

The way Ngoc Nhi turned her situation around deserves closer attention than the results alone. Losing 0-5 in the first bout is a heavy psychological blow for a kata athlete, because kata scores are judged on technical criteria and expressiveness rather than on the number of strikes landed. That she came back with two consecutive wins shows an ability to rebuild her competitive state in a very short window, a skill young athletes rarely possess.

This is not the first time Ngoc Nhi has made her mark. She had already left an impression at SEA Games 33 and at Asian youth championships before entering Asiad 20. What stands out is that her result came in an event where Vietnam has no traditional advantage, since women's individual kata on this continent has long been dominated by Japan, South Korea and a handful of other established karate nations. A bronze medal there is not a default outcome.

After nearly half a day of competition, China moved to the top of the medal table with 2 golds, 4 silvers and 1 bronze. Athlete Lin Xinyu in the women's triathlon delivered China's first gold of Asiad 20. Host Japan sat second with 2 golds and 3 bronzes. Macao, South Korea and Kazakhstan each had 1 gold, ranking third through fifth respectively. Vietnam's delegation was ninth with 2 bronzes.

Reading the medal table after half a day of competition is the biggest blind spot for sports viewers. Ninth place says nothing about the strength of Vietnam's delegation, just as China's lead says nothing about the real gap between sporting nations. At every Games, the organisers schedule events by sport, and the disciplines decided early are usually those with stable cycles and a moderate number of registered athletes. China led in the morning because the women's triathlon was contested first, not because they had reached their ceiling.

The same honesty applies to teqball. Many will look at this bronze medal and attach the word "easy" to it, since new sports often have fewer rivals and a lower competitive threshold. Reality runs the other way. When a sport is newly added to the Asian Games, the technical gap between nations is levelled very quickly, everyone has an equal chance, and equal opportunity also means errors are punished more severely. The defeat of Ba Truong Giang and Le Anh Khoa to the Iraqi pair is the clearest evidence of that.

Teqball's competitive data is also not yet dense enough for analysts to properly assess the true strength of each pair. Based on my experience following matches, I usually have to review footage at least twice before drawing conclusions about a new sport, because early statistics can easily lead a writer in the wrong direction. In a sport where every touch of the ball can swing the score, rushing to a conclusion is the fastest way to get it wrong.

The two bronze medals on the opening day also reflect a feature of Vietnam's delegations at major Games: results usually come from events that were not forecast in advance, where athletes must cope with pressure on their own without much supporting force behind them. In the teqball mixed doubles, there was only one pair. In women's individual kata, there was only one athlete. That is a thin structure, and it makes the value of each medal far greater than the number shown on the medal table.

Every season is a piece of music; I am only the one keeping time for the stories that need to settle. The first day of competition at Asiad 20 is not over, but its rhythm is already clear: a new sport opened with a medal, a traditional sport followed with composure, and one defeat left more questions than either victory.

The next signal to watch comes on September 22, when Bui Ngoc Nhi and her teammates enter the women's team kata quarter-finals against Nepal. Team kata demands absolute synchronisation of breathing rhythm and range of motion, where one athlete falling out of step can drag the whole team down. If Ngoc Nhi maintains the competitive state she showed in her two winning bouts on September 20, this is a genuine opportunity for Vietnam's delegation to add another medal before the decisive phase of the Games.