From Lao Than Peak to a Lesson in Civility: Van Trang, Mother of Four, Runs 42km and Answers Body Shaming

Y Ty, Sept 6, 2026 – When I stood at the last kilometer of the 42km route, in the biting cold of Lao Cai’s mountains, the image of Van Trang crossing the finish line felt like a slow-motion film. She did not celebrate by raising her arms or shouting for joy. She just stood there panting, hands on knees, her hair tucked under her cap. But the way she lifted her head and looked toward the distant Lao Than range was enough to tell me: she had just done something extraordinary. On the results list of the 2026 Y Ty Golden Season trail race, her name – Van Trang, also known as Jang Doll – appeared as the No. 1 female runner in the 42km distance. More notably, she finished No. 2 overall, ahead of nearly every male competitor except one. Her finish time of 4 hours 26 minutes on a course with over 1,300 meters of cumulative elevation gain is remarkable enough for any trail runner to respect. Yet only hours after she left the podium, her image was shared in running groups for disgusting comments: they stared at her large natural bust, called them “two grapefruits,” and asked if she felt heavy carrying them while running. Van Trang’s story is not just about an athletic record. It is a test of how society treats women in sports, a layer of prejudice that I, as a journalist who has lived and written about sports for many years, feel needed to be dug up. There are gems not found at the top of the standings, but beneath the dust of the bench. Van Trang is not a young talent, nor a media-craved face. She is a mother of four, born in 2026, who came to Y Ty not to pose or post beautiful photos, but to conquer the person she was yesterday. To understand why I use the word “conquer,” try putting yourself in her shoes. The 42km route of Y Ty Golden Season winds through foggy villages, crosses steep slopes built almost vertically, where the ground after the night rain becomes slippery mud. The mountain air becomes thinner as you approach the peak of Lao Than at 2,860 meters above sea level. There, each step costs oxygen, and one wrong breath can destroy the entire strategy. Van Trang told me she did not use all her energy at the beginning, but focused only on the section in front of her, kept her breathing steady, distributed her strength and fueled at the right moments. Her self-reminder sounded like a mantra of long-distance runners: “Stay calm, as long as there is strength, there is opportunity.” That is not a cliché. It is a strategy shaped by thousands of kilometers of training, combining running, gym, swimming and supplementary exercises to build a durable body. But Van Trang’s story should be seen not only through physical metrics. I want to say that sport always reflects society. And this reflection is never perfectly clean. During races I have covered, I saw female runners wearing tight, comfortable outfits as a standard, then being put under a “magnifying glass” by a segment of the audience. They talked about weight, breasts, thighs, buttocks, skin color – while the woman they discussed had just run more than forty kilometers over rocky slopes. If our community truly loves sports, why, when a woman finishes first, do we not ask about her pacing, her strength training, how she managed energy in the final kilometers when her glycogen was completely gone? Instead, she is treated as an object to be evaluated. This is where my honest measuring tool – data – shows the gap between real achievement and the public’s distorted perception. For her part, Van Trang chose not to remain silent like a docile victim. She answered directly on social media: “I dare anyone to run 42km or 55km through mountains carrying two grapefruits! I run with my legs, not with my appearance, so why take me into groups to talk nonsense? Some people see pressure, but I see motivation – a vitamin C supply for my spirit. What matters is that I still finished the race, I am still healthy and happy. As for judging, keep judging. I run with my own legs, not with the mouths of others.” I have witnessed athletes deal with criticism in many ways. Some choose silence, some cry, some told me they wanted to retire to escape everything. But Van Trang chose to speak out honestly, because she understands that a woman’s silence in the face of offensive words is often misunderstood as acceptance. She also knows that her journey is far from over. She told me that after the Y Ty victory, she aims to compete in the 70km distance of VMM this year, and later, perhaps touch the 100km mark by the end of the year. Such a plan is not for someone who runs for social media. It is meant for someone who truly loves being challenged. I write this article not to hero-worship anyone. I write because I believe in a principle: the true value of a contract lies not in the release clause, but in the clauses people rush to leave blank. In sports, true value lies not in the external body displayed, but in years of practice and silent discipline no camera captures. Women in sport do not need to be seen as “beautiful flowers” to be honored. They need to be seen as athletes, with their achievements, sacrifice and professional ability. There is a counterintuitive point I want to add: the body-shaming comments Van Trang received, which upset the Vietnamese running community, may unintentionally create a great opportunity. Because it forces us to ask: where is the line between encouragement and insult? Where is the line between caring and staring? When a female athlete finishes with a sweaty face, do we have enough civility to critique her technique or praise her endurance, instead of judging her body? The answer, for now, in those running groups, is still far off. In an ideal world, nobody would need to defend the right to run in their own body. Running is the most individual sport, where each person races only against themselves and against the distance. Short, tall, curvy, skinny – the body does not matter, because the body is just a vehicle for the mind to overcome limits. Yet the reality shows many women are afraid to run, afraid to wear fitted apparel, afraid to register for races because of fear of mockery. This is what slows the growth of Vietnamese sports. Not the lack of facilities, events or money. It is the lack of a sport culture that knows how to look at achievement instead of curves. Sitting with Van Trang after the award ceremony, I asked if she intended to change the way she dressed to avoid prying eyes. She smiled, shook her head: “Sports clothing must first of all be comfortable and safe. If I changed myself just because I fear being judged, I would spend my whole life living under other people’s eyes. I choose to focus on the road and my goals.” This answer reminded me of a study about athletes’ psychology: high performers often have excellent ability to filter external noise. They focus on internal cues – heart rate, breath, muscle feel – instead of outside gossip. And exactly as she said: “Marathon taught me that you don’t always run in perfect conditions. Life is the same. Praise makes me happy, criticism helps me reflect, and dishonest words I choose to let go.” As a person who has spent years observing the development of running and long-distance sports in Vietnam, I see Van Trang is not the only phenomenon. More and more middle-aged women, mothers, people no longer in their twenties, are joining difficult races such as VMM, Vietrace and Y Ty, and they are placing top, breaking records. They are buried gems – not because their ability is low, but because society’s vision has not caught up with their speed of change. Society remains trapped in the mindset that women with families, women who have given birth, women over thirty, should stay home, dress modestly, run slower or not run at all. But women like Van Trang are proving the opposite. They run faster than most men on courses few dare to try. Van Trang’s story, from my point of view, is similar to how I look at a young player underestimated on the bench. The standings do not lie. She ran 42km in 4 hours 26 minutes, while terrain like Y Ty normally pushes amateur male runners to 5-6 hours. This proves she has outstanding physical capacity, not lucky to have. And when she said, “Keep judging, I run with my own legs, not with the mouths of others,” I heard a life philosophy worthy of any runner. At the end of the interview, Y Ty started to drizzle. Van Trang pulled on a thin jacket, looked at the mountain she had just conquered and said softly: “Let results speak. I don’t need to become a version others want to see. I only need to become a better version of myself every day.” I believe those words will echo for a long time in Vietnam’s running community, and I hope that prejudice against women’s bodies in sport will soon be left behind, like an old raincoat thrown by the roadside. Every star was once a misplaced piece in the scouting map. And Van Trang has proven that the map of the body is not the only map by which to measure a person.