Can Gio and the 200m Wife-Carrying Race: No Records, No Rankings, Yet It Touches the Heart

I stood at the starting line, not in a stadium, but on a coastal road in Can Gio district, Ho Chi Minh City, where the salty sea breeze blew through the palm trees and the laughter of hundreds of local residents rang out without pause. In front of me, Mr. Xuan Them, 34, bent down to adjust his posture so that Ms. Thuy Linh, 29, could sit more securely on his back. The starting signal rang. He walked, not ran. Short steps, bent knees, heavy breathing. Two hundred meters. More than three minutes. I looked at my watch and thought: this is the slowest race I have ever witnessed. Yet it is the race that made me think the most. I have followed sports for nine years, from professional football pitches to community running paths across Vietnam. I have never seen a competition as unusual and as humane as the 200-meter wife-carrying race within the HDBank Green Marathon. This race is not part of any official World Athletics competition system. There are no qualifying standards. No national rankings. No recognized records. Yet hundreds of Can Gio residents stood watching, cheering, clapping, as if they were witnessing a World Cup final. What does this competition mean? Why would a bank-sponsored marathon dedicate part of its playground to a wife-carrying contest? And what does that say about community sports in Vietnam today? The answer, as I realized, is not in speed or achievement. It is in belonging. Let us talk about the numbers first. Three minutes for 200 meters means an average speed of about 1.1 meters per second, equivalent to 4 km/h. Slower than the brisk walking pace of a normal adult. But this figure does not reflect any weakness in Mr. Xuan Them. It reflects the load. Ms. Thuy Linh is an adult woman, weighing roughly 40 to 50 kilograms. When carrying an extra 40-50 kg on his back, the male body is forced to change its entire movement mechanism: shorter steps, lowered center of gravity, heavy pressure on hamstrings and lumbar spine. This load is equivalent to 55-75 percent of the body weight of an adult man. Mr. Xuan Them was not running; he was carrying half of himself on his back, and he did that for more than three minutes, before registering for a 42 km marathon the next day. That is more remarkable than any record. I have followed the World Wife-Carrying Championship in Finland, a sport originating from the Eukonkanto tradition, where couples compete over 253.5 meters in about 60 seconds. Speeds there can reach 4 meters per second, nearly four times faster than Mr. Xuan Them. But such a comparison is misleading. Finnish athletes train year-round, use the reverse-carry technique, optimize their center of gravity, and run on good surfaces. Mr. Xuan Them carried his wife in the traditional style, both legs on the ground, and he did it for joy, not for medals. The difference is not a gap in ability; it is a gap in purpose. Can Gio does not need a world championship. Can Gio needs a festival where a husband can carry his wife on his back amid laughter, and where a child can cry along the way and still reach the finish line. I want to talk about that child. In the 1.5 km children's race, a young child burst into tears halfway through. Perhaps tired. Perhaps afraid of the crowd. Perhaps just wanting to stop. But a pacer, a support runner, came beside the child, held the child's hand, and guided the child to the finish. No one scolded. No one left anyone behind. That moment reminded me that community sports have a power elite sports do not: they teach us that failure is not frightening, tears are not shameful, and the finish line is always ahead, no matter how slow. In Kenya, where I was born, I saw barefoot children running on red dirt roads, chasing homemade balls. I understood that sports do not begin in modern stadiums. They begin with the desire to move, to belong somewhere. Today in Can Gio, I saw that again. Not on the 42 km course, but on the 200-meter stretch with a wife on one's back, and a crying child being led by the hand to the finish. The story of Mr. Xuan Them and Ms. Thuy Linh is not just a story about a fun game. It is a story about how we are redefining sports. While professional tournaments increasingly focus on commercial value, broadcast rights, and sponsorship deals, community races like the HDBank Green Marathon go the other way: putting people at the center. No one is eliminated. No one is left behind. A bank sponsoring a marathon not only for brand promotion but also to build community connection — there is nothing wrong with that. In fact, it is a sustainable model thriving in many countries. When I look at the HDBank Green Marathon, I see a deliberately designed ecosystem: a main marathon for adults, a wife-carrying contest for couples, and 1.5 km and 3 km races for children. This is what I call the festival marathon model. It attracts not only athletes but also families, relatives, and people who have never run before. The race has maintained the wife-carrying contest for five consecutive years, proving that this is not a temporary gimmick but part of the event's identity. But there is a paradox I want to address. Many people, seeing the wife-carrying contest, will immediately think of gender stereotypes: women turned into objects of burden. I understand that thought. In an age of gender equality, the image of a man carrying his wife on his back can be misinterpreted as a symbol of possession. But I disagree. I was there. I saw the look in Ms. Thuy Linh's eyes as she held onto her husband's back. It was not the look of a possession. It was the look of absolute trust. And I saw Mr. Xuan Them's hands tightly gripping his wife's legs — not to bind her, but to keep her safe. This race does not demean women. It reveals the power of partnership. The husband must understand his wife's body, know where to hold, when to tighten his grip. The wife must trust her husband completely to hold onto his back on a rough course. If we only look at the surface, we miss the deeper message. Furthermore, the marathon's dedication of space to children and families shows a promising trend: Vietnamese sports are expanding beyond achievement. I have written much about women's football, and I always emphasize: women's football does not need saving; it just needs someone willing to sit down and listen. Likewise, community running races do not need to be measured by World Athletics standards. They just need to be seen for what they are worth. Look at that 1.1 m/s pace again. In a world obsessed with running faster, jumping higher, being stronger, a race slower than walking is a poetic reminder: faster is not always better. Not every record is worth remembering. Some records never appear on leaderboards, yet they are etched into the hearts of hundreds of people. Mr. Xuan Them's record is not 3 minutes for 200 meters. His record is the 42 km the very next day, the spirit of a man willing to carry on his back the woman he loves, not out of obligation, but as his way of saying: you can lean on me. As I left Can Gio that day, I remembered a phrase I often use in my writing: The regional ball has no rankings, but it makes me know where I belong. Can Gio had no ball. But it had a running path, a husband carrying his wife, a child led to the finish, and hundreds of people watching not for achievement but because they felt they belonged to a community. That is sports. It is not always about winning; it is about presence. It is not always about records; it is about moments. And the slowest moment I witnessed today was, in fact, the moment that said the most to me. In Can Gio, I saw that glory does not come from stadium lights, but from women who dare to dream, from men who dare to carry those dreams on their backs, and from a community that knows how to stand together. That is why I still believe in sports, in the simplest, most humane way. Because sometimes, the greatest thing is not running fast. It is daring to walk together, even slowly. Glory does not come from stadium lights, but from women who dare to dream. The wife-carrying race in Can Gio did not create a champion. But it created a community that knows how to love. And that, to me, is worth more than any medal.