Fountain Pens #1: ASIAD and public speaking

There is a famous quote, attached to Napoleon Bonaparte, saying “Until you spread your wings, you’ll have no idea how far you can fly” (Medrut, 2024). What I enjoy about this quote is the metaphoric detail of it: Humans do not have wings; so what wings should we spread? And the answers make people different and make life so exciting and purposeful. In a lifetime both long and short, each of us devotes most of our time to identify these unique wings, train them, spread them, break them, recover them, and eventually let them take us far away, to the furthest point of our desires.

At the Asian Games (ASIAD) this year, I saw real “wings”. Sport is beautiful because it makes you see the ambitious wings defy and reascend against the hardships, over and over again. I saw the wings of my brothers from Vietnam’s national team of men’s volleyball. They jumped 3 meters and a half vertically high. They spiked the ball 90 kilometers per hour fast. When their attacks were blocked by taller opponents, they dove on the floor, caught the ball before it fell, swung their arms, challenged the gravity, and once again, they were flying over the 2.43-meter-high net. I also saw the wings of sepak takraw girls whom we trained with in the 42°C summer, of a swimmer who was incapable of swimming until 13, of a Korean basketball player who cried last year for losing a collegiate match, and of every other athlete who gave everything but never gave up (TTXVN, 2026; Long, 2025; Yonhap, 2026). At ASIAD, I saw the wings that have taken people from instability and nonentity to fulfilment and prestige.

ASIAD is the biggest sport competition of Asia, hosting 45 countries and territories, 43 sports, and 11,000 athletes this year in Nagoya, Japan, even more than the Paris 2024 Summer Olympics (Wade, 2026). Therefore, it is not an exaggeration to say that ASIAD is the dream of every Asian sport enthusiast, and participation at ASIAD is a hard-earned opportunity for every personnel, including athletes and non-athletes, such as an interpreter like me. Even to this point, I am still in awe, contemplating my relationship with sports, which rooted from a random student volleyball club to the Asian Games. However, while these athletes are spreading their resilient, scarred wings to be qualified at ASIAD, what wings have flown me here? What are my contributions and are they valuable enough to be a part of ASIAD?

At that point, I realised my own pair of wings was my voice. I am here, at ASIAD, to use my voice, to interpret English and Vietnamese, to convey messages from our Coach Federico Rampazzo to the audience of 12 players and 3 assistant coaches, and to make sure the accurate words I speak touch hearts. More than physical, sports are emotional games. Therefore, what a coach says and an interpreter transfers have to carry a richness of emotion, inspiration, and even love. Aware that I am the cement to the masonry of this volleyball team, not only did I deliver the speech, but I also chose to feel the speech and fight along with my athlete brothers by using my voice. When I have the message, I scream it out to them; and when they feel weak, I remind them they are not with the loudest voice I can gather, echoing in front of the silent anticipation of the audience. Our wings were flailing side by side, despite the difference in shape, through every handicap, and to Vietnam’s first ever South East Asian gold medal in men’s volleyball history.

Therefore, my voice has manifested my reality. It was my voice as an MC, a match announcer that set me off at volleyball tournaments. It was my voice in every conversation and self-introduction, where I tried to learn something, showed my dynamism towards sports, and represented a confident Vietnamese identity to foreign coaches and athletes. It was also my voice that, on a daily basis, soothes my exhausted mentality by singing, and reassures my self-doubting inner child by talking. Every time I take bravery and use my voice, it counts and step by step leads me to this point, where I am at ASIAD, making speeches to fuel the players’ hearts with confidence and passion.

However, at the present, these speeches do not completely belong to me, as these are merely zealous interpretations. This job has been wonderful, but I will not stop here and be satisfied as a well-known interpreter within the Vietnamese volleyball community. It is my firm intent to transform my little speaking talent into greater competency, in the form of professional public speaking skills. Little chats with Coach Reidel Toiran in English, Coach Park Ki-won in Korean, Coach Sakamoto in Japanese, and Coach Huang Hung-yu in Chinese will definitely turn into public speeches in 27 languages to make real social impacts. Speaking has taken me this far, and it is unimaginable where the ability of making persuasive and poignant speeches is going to take me. Above all, I have a steadfast belief that my future speeches, pitches, and negotiations will become the means to actualise my dream, which is promoting sports for public health, economic development, international friendships, and equal share of soft power.

This is a massive dream, but even the longest journey starts with a single footstep. Referring to the saying at the beginning, until one spreads their wings, they cannot know how far they will get. As for me, until I dare to deliver public speeches, I will not know how much intellection I can share, how many people I can influence, or how great the following achievements might be. Therefore, this is the time to reach higher with my wings – my voice and watch how the world changes with every single word I speak to it.

References:

Long, D. (2025, December 10). Trần Hưng Nguyên: Hành trình từ cậu bé không biết bơi đến “viên ngọc quý” của bơi lội Việt Nam. Van Hoa. https://baovanhoa.vn/the-thao/hanh-trinh-tu-cau-be-khong-biet-boi-den-vien-ngoc-quy-cua-boi-loi-viet-nam-187276.html

Medrut, F. (2024, May 15). 16 Most Remarkable Napoleon Bonaparte Quotes. Goalcast. https://www.goalcast.com/napoleon-bonaparte-quotes

TTXVN. (2026, October 3). ASIAD 2026: Cầu mây nữ bảo vệ thành công Huy chương Vàng ASIAD. Tin Tuc. https://baotintuc.vn/asiad-2026-cau-may-nu-bao-ve-thanh-cong-huy-chuong-vang-asiad-post1391129.html

Wade, S. (2026, October 5). Asian Games close in Japan and head to Qatar in 2030. Japan Today. (https://japantoday.com/category/sports/the-asian-games-with-more-athletes-than-the-olympics-close-in-japan-and-head-to-qatar-in-2030

Yonhap. (2026, September 25). S. Korea captures gold in men’s 3×3 basketball. The Korea Times. https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/sports/20260925/s-korea-captures-gold-in-mens-3×3-basketball

Mackenzie Nguyen

• This is Public Speaking’s assignment — Special Assignment on ASIAD experience and public speaking skills, under Global Business Journalism programme, School of Journalism and Communication, Tsinghua University, China.
• Emdash — is my personal choice, not AI.
• Photos from Webthethao.vn & Bong Chuyen Viet Nam Facebook fanpages. I am only using these photos for educational purpose.