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| Karate demonstration at the opening ceremony |
Large-scale and rich in cultural identity
For the first time, the opening ceremony of the 10th Hue City Sports Festival 2026 was held at the Indoor Sports Arena in Hue City's Culture and Sports Square, bringing together nearly 5,000 athletes, coaches, referees, performers, students, officials, armed forces personnel and local residents. The artistic performances and mass demonstrations, involving nearly 2,000 participants, combined with unicorn-lion-dragon dances, Vovinam, Karate, singing, dancing, and ao-dai performances, presenting a blend of Hue's martial arts tradition, rich cultural identity, dynamism and modern spirit.
Under the theme ‘Hue's Aspirations - Reaching New Heights in Sports’, the festival not only celebrated physical fitness activities but also linked sports development with improving quality of life, enriching cultural life, promoting the city's image and boosting tourism and services. This approach is well suited to a heritage city where sports have long served as a bridge connecting communities, culture, tourism and development.
The festival featured 18 sports: chess, football, Karate, Taekwondo, athletics, swimming, badminton, cross-country running, table tennis, volleyball, wrestling, crossbow shooting, traditional boat racing, Chinese chess, Vovinam, shuttlecock kicking, billiards and pétanque. The combination of modern and traditional sports broadened opportunities for participation, attracted people from different groups and helped strengthen community ties.
According to Tran Huu Thuy Giang, Member of the City Party Committee and Vice Chairman of Hue City People's Committee, Hue is undergoing strong development, taking shape as a green, smart, dynamic heritage city with a distinctive cultural identity. As part of this development strategy, physical education and sports have consistently received comprehensive attention and direction from the City Party Committee, People's Council and People's Committee, with the aim of improving public health, physical development and people's spiritual well-being. Sports are also closely linked to the development of tourism, services and the city's sports economy; thereby, contributing to the double-digit growth target set out in the resolutions of the City Party Congress and higher-level Party organizations.
Addressing concerns
One of the key objectives of the 10th Hue City Sports Festival 2026 is to identify and select outstanding athletes to strengthen the city's team in preparation for the 10th National Sports Festival, scheduled to take place in mid-November in Ho Chi Minh City.
In light of this objective, the return of some professional athletes to compete for their localities has raised concerns. Some worry that, instead of serving as a platform for discovering promising athletes from grassroots sports movements, the festival could become an arena where elite athletes compete for medals on behalf of their local teams.
According to these views, the participation of professional athletes could raise the standard of competition, attract greater interest and strengthen the festival's influence on grassroots sports. However, without a clear distinction between its objectives, the medal achievements of individual localities could easily be mistaken for evidence of their effectiveness in discovering and developing sporting talent at the grassroots level.
If elite athletes return to compete for their localities and are subsequently selected for the city team, it is necessary to clarify whether the festival has genuinely uncovered new talent or has mainly served as an opportunity to assess athletes who have already received systematic training, some of whom have even achieved success at major competitions. These are two different objectives that need to be considered carefully and transparently.
"The issue is not whether it is right or wrong for professional athletes to compete for their localities, but whether the festival truly fulfills its role in discovering talent and whether the selection process for the National Sports Festival is objective. A locality's achievements through systematically trained athletes still deserve recognition, but they are not sufficient to demonstrate that its grassroots sports movement has developed to the same extent," one observer commented.
In some respects, these concerns are justified. However, results at the city festival are only one of several criteria used to select athletes for national competition. Selection must also take into account technical ability, current form, achievements at regional and national competitions, and each athlete's performance throughout the training process, rather than relying solely on results from a single festival.
For many years, talent identification at the grassroots level has also been closely linked to school sports and the professional training system. This approach helps ensure objectivity in athlete selection while allowing the festival to promote mass participation in sports and provide further grounds for assessing elite athletes. At the same time, it contributes to the effective use of investment resources.
This provides a solid foundation for both grassroots and high-performance sports to make further progress in various areas. It also creates additional momentum for Hue's athletes not only to achieve their target of winning six to eight gold medals at the 10th National Sports Festival 2026, but also to strengthen the former imperial capital's standing on the national sporting stage.