Husbands carrying wives in a 200m race at Can Gio: The marathon festival and a sport not measured by the clock

Can Gio, a September morning. On the 200-metre course marked out near the sea, dozens of husbands bent forward, taking impossibly short steps, knees buckling, with their wives clinging to their backs. Laughter rose from the sidelines, mixed with applause and shouts of encouragement. If we stop at the laughter, we will miss a meaningful signal from Vietnam's mass-participation sports scene. Stars are not born in finals; they are born in races nobody watches. And here, in a race with no record to break.

The wife-carrying contest was part of the side events of the HDBank Green Marathon in Can Gio district, Ho Chi Minh City. The main race was a 42km marathon, but one day before it, the organisers reserved a separate area for couples to compete over 200 metres in a carrying style. Alongside that were two distances for children: 1.5km and 3km. According to a VnExpress report from the scene, this was the fifth consecutive year the event had been organised. The winning couple was Xuan Them, 34, and Thuy Linh, 29, both from the An Suong Runners club. Notably, both were scheduled to run the 42km marathon the next day. That small detail says a great deal: they came for the experience and the community atmosphere, more than for medals.

From a technical standpoint, do not rush to call this a competitive sporting performance. The winning couple completed 200 metres in more than 3 minutes. The average speed was only about 1.1 metres per second, or 4 km/h. For a recreational runner, that is slower than brisk walking. But look at the burden: the husband was carrying an extra 40 to 50 kilograms, or roughly 55 to 75 percent of the typical body weight of an adult man. That forced short steps, bent knees and vertical compression on the spine, completely different from normal running. The running form was distorted; the rhythm was broken. Compared with the Nordic-style wife-carrying race, where the usual distance is 253.5 metres and elite couples finish in about 60 seconds, the Can Gio race was much slower. That difference does not reflect weak ability; it confirms the nature of the event: a fun race, not an arena.

Based on my years of following mass-participation running events, I have noticed an important rule. Events like this are designed to maximise participation rather than to find a champion. The organisers do not need to measure results by the clock; they need images of families laughing, children running with parents, and couples staggering while carrying each other. A branded marathon is often built as a layered formula: the main race attracts serious runners, the side events attract newcomers, and the children's distances plant seeds for the next generation. This is the festival-marathon model spreading across Asia. The HDBank Green Marathon is applying exactly that formula, and a bank as title sponsor indicates a community-branding strategy, not simply the staging of a race.

People may laugh and call the wife-carrying contest odd. But that oddity is its strength. In a sports ecosystem, there is not always room for high performance; sometimes the door matters more. Fun events act as a gateway, bringing people who have never run before close to a marathon. Children who finish 1.5km or 3km with pacers will store the first sports memory of their lives. One girl cried on the course, and the pacers stayed beside her, comforting her and running with her to the finish line. That moment will never appear in the results table, but it is worth more than many medals. Fathers and mothers who run with their children, and laugh with their children, will have a reason to return next year. Can Gio did not produce a national record that day, but it produced something rarer: a community ready to stay connected to physical activity.

The counter-intuitive point is this: those who defend the purity of sport may view the wife-carrying race as a gimmick and ignore its value. But while Vietnam's running boom is taking off, and banks and corporations are pouring money into marathon sponsorships, the goal is not to produce Olympic athletes. They are building brands through community closeness. An event like the wife-carrying race surviving for five consecutive years is proof of a smart media strategy: create a shareable moment, touch family emotions, and turn a sponsorship into a human story. If someone is looking for an elite performance here, they are looking in the wrong place. If they want to understand why more and more Vietnamese people are running, they should look at the short steps and bent knees of husbands carrying their wives.

In a place nobody notices, I found the thing the whole world will talk about. I am not talking about a viral video or a sensational media story. I am talking about the shift in Vietnam's sporting base: from a country where sport was seen as a privilege of professional athletes, to a country where sport begins with the laughter of a child running 1.5km. Wife-carrying races, children's distances, and fathers and mothers in running-club shirts are all creating a new movement culture. The growth of Vietnam's recreational running scene does not need a national record as proof. It has already proven itself through participation numbers, bank sponsorships, and the five-year tradition of a playful contest.

I also remember the feeling of being doubted the first time I sat in a commentary booth. The first headset was heavier than I expected, but my voice was even heavier. People may doubt what a young woman understands about tactics. I answered with preparation and with in-depth articles. Just as elite sport is often doubted by people who look only at records, community sport is often undervalued by people who look only at the clock. But without cheering, I can hear my own applause more clearly. And without a leaderboard, I can still feel the pulse of a movement.

The day after the wife-carrying race, Xuan Them and Thuy Linh will stand at the start line of a 42km marathon. They may not break personal records; they may stop at a water station to rest. But registering for a full marathon right after carrying each other over 200 metres is a declaration: they run because they enjoy it, because they want a life with movement, because they belong to a community that does not wait for someone to hand out medals.

What are Vietnam's marathon organisers learning from this model? That is a question worth tracking in the coming years. When a major bank chooses to sponsor a race with a wife-carrying category and children's categories, it is not simply buying advertising space. It is helping to shape the exercise habits of a generation. September weather in southern Vietnam is hot and humid, and holding a load-bearing contest right before a 42km marathon raises the issue of recovery for participants. But that is the organiser's responsibility: ensure safety, place water stations, have medical staff and pacers ready. Looking at the children being comforted on the way to the finish, it is clear that supervision was in place. And when a couple who won the wife-carrying race is ready to run another 42km the next morning, that is not about tactics or records; it is a story of human endurance.

Are we looking at sport too narrowly when we care only about results? Perhaps the answer lies on that 200-metre course full of laughter. The short steps of husbands carrying their wives will not set a record, but they are carrying a movement. And that movement will, in turn, produce the real athletes of the future.