Silent stars on Da Lat's trails: The sports-tourism equation of Vietnamese trail running

I still remember standing on the Da Lat highlands at 5:47 a.m. Fog clung thick to the Prenn Pass road, and in the distance, a runner's silhouette approached with a small LED light strapped to the calf - a self-made device to climb the slope without tripping. The figure was Phan Van Loi, 32, an IT engineer from Ho Chi Minh City, who had completed 75 km of mountain road in 11 hours 22 minutes. The number would not impress a Kenyan athlete, but it tells a different story: of a Vietnamese person who paid for his own flight, bought his own pair of Hoka shoes, prepared his own water bottle and headlamp, to run a route that 7 years earlier did not exist on any official running map. In that thin mist, I understood that the story of Vietnamese sport never begins with numbers that speak - it begins with steps no one counts.

A decade of context rising from the mist

Trail running was an alien phrase to most Vietnamese until around 2026. Before that, the official running routes of Vietnamese people were mainly paved flats: Ho Chi Minh City, Hanoi, Da Nang international marathons. Terrain was for backpackers, not athletes. Then Dalat Ultra Trail launched in 2026 with its first 21 km category, later expanding to 75 km, 110 km. Vietnam Mountain Marathon (VMM) by Topas Travel kicked off around the same time in Sa Pa, attached to pine woods atop the O Quy Ho pass. By 2026, these two events combined had recorded roughly 2,000 - 3,000 cumulative Vietnamese participants. The number sounds modest, but it is evidence that an entirely new sports segment had formed in just 3 years.

When I left Kenya to return to Vietnam for Dalat Ultra Trail 2026, I carried a question from Nairobi: how can a country like Turkey turn a local trail race into a 60-country, 2,000-athlete event in just two years, while Vietnam still hovers around a few hundred foreign runners? The answer lies in a single word the Vietnamese sports industry is still reluctant to speak: the political economy of the event.

Core: When numbers begin to tell names

I spent two days in Da Lat counting - counting each runner crossing the mountain passes, counting bibs, counting female ratios, counting even unrewarded efforts. Based on my observation, DUT 2026 had approximately 1,800 athletes across 6 distances from 5 km to 110 km, with a female ratio around 32% - a surprisingly high figure compared to the 25 - 28% typical of Southeast Asian trail races. Foreign runners accounted for about 18%, from 27 countries, concentrated in France, Germany, Japan, South Korea. Not bad, but still far below the 60-country mark. Why?

Look at the financial structure. VMM has been sponsored by HEINEKEN Vietnam since 2026, a beverage brand with the largest sports marketing budget in Southeast Asia. DUT only secured stable major sponsorship in 2026 - usually running gear brands like Garmin, Salomon, or local sportswear labels. Meanwhile, Turkey's Kaçkar by UTMB model directly involves Turkish Airlines, electric car maker TOGG, telecom Turkcell - three 'national brand champions' appearing together. This is no longer sports sponsorship; this is a national image strategy.

Vietnam does not yet have a national brand willing to 'carry' trail running in that way. Vietnam Airlines might sponsor flights for elite foreign runners, but that is logistical support, not long-term brand initiative. VinGroup might sponsor a race with billions of dong, but no electric car line bears the trail race's name. That is the biggest blind spot.

But there is something more interesting to count. I met a 47-year-old female runner in the 21 km DUT category, who said she started trail running after reading an article about Nguyen Thi Thanh - nicknamed 'Tom' - the young woman with old shoes who once departed from a local race in Lao Cai to finish at Mont-Blanc in 2026. Not appearing in any federation annual report, but she inspired hundreds of women over 40 to climb passes in ordinary sneakers. That is the kind of impact sports economics never counts.

Technically, Vietnamese trail races are developing the right way. The distance ladder is clear: 5 - 10 km for newcomers, 21 km for amateur runners, 42 km for intermediates, 75 - 110 km for elites. Average elevation from 800 to 2,000 m D+ for the 75 km in Da Lat, on par with some Chamonix routes but at lower altitude. Cut-off pressure is applied strictly: in 2026, DUT had approximately 18% DNF (Did Not Finish) on the 75 km category - a high rate showing the technical standard is truly serious, not the 'stroll in the mountains' many imagine.

The question I asked myself at the finish line at 5 p.m.: why do these races lack a centralized national statistics table? Each race manages its own data, no agency aggregates: how many women finished 75 km in the past 12 months? How many runners under 25 entered the longest distance? No centralized data, no development policy possible. That is the blind spot the Vietnamese sports industry is living with.

I also observed a worrying phenomenon: female runners typically choose distances 30% shorter than men (women average 21 km, men 42 km at the same age), though their completion rates are equivalent. That means: Vietnamese women participate, but they participate at safer levels, perhaps due to lack of confidence in their own endurance at long distances. This is a cultural problem, not a sports problem.

Contrarian view: When sports-tourism does not create elite athletes

I once made a mistake writing that trail running would produce Vietnamese Eliud Kipchoges. It won't. Trail running is its own ecosystem, not a nursery for paved-road marathon. Look at France - the homeland of UTMB - this nation has the world's most powerful trail system, yet its elite marathon athletes come from naturalized East Africans. Trail running nurtures a culture of running, not Olympic medals. The same is true for Vietnam: hoping DUT will produce an Olympic runner is unreasonable. But expecting DUT to inspire 100,000 people to hike mountains each year - that is feasible.

So what is the blind spot? It is that Vietnamese sports officials still evaluate trail running through the lens of traditional athletics. They ask: 'What is the best result? Has anyone joined the national team?' These questions reflect outdated thinking. Trail running creates value in three places: community wellness, local tourism, and national branding. Not medals. Trinh Quoc Viet, one of Vietnam's most outstanding trail runners currently with a sub-5-hour finish at 50 km in Ultra-Trail Nui Cam, is not on the athletics national squad. He is building his own career - and that is the right model.

Another blind spot: dependence on local sponsorship. When the Lam Dong Provincial People's Committee reduced support for DUT due to tight budgets, the race nearly stopped. Financial resilience is the core story. In Turkey, three major sponsors share risk; in Vietnam, only one or two. That is a weak model.

Progressive thought

I have stood between these trails for years, from Kenya to Da Lat, and I have learned one thing: the truest star is not the fastest runner, but the one who strains themselves in silence. Phan Van Loi at 5:47 a.m., the 47-year-old woman running 21 km to rediscover her post-birth figure, Nguyen Thi Thanh with old shoes - they are the Vietnamese quietly writing a new chapter for the country's sports. The question is no longer 'Can Vietnam beat anyone on the track?' but 'Does Vietnam dare to invest in the persistence of those footsteps?' At 61, I believe the answer will come - slowly, but surely.