N/A: When sports analysts dare to say 'insufficient data'

In a small newsroom in Nha Trang, I once received a seven-page technical analysis. Every page repeated the same phrase: N/A – insufficient information. No athlete name, no race metrics, no source citation. I put the analysis down, drank a cup of cold coffee, and phoned my colleague. “Are you sure this is the final version?” On the other end of the line, he was silent. His answer afterwards stuck with me for a long time: “Because I don’t want to invent a sports story just to fit the analytical framework.” I tell that story not to quote an unusual writing technique. I tell it because it reflects a disease growing quietly in sports writing in Vietnam: the fear of leaving a data cell empty. We live in an age where rankings, effectiveness indexes and motion charts appear everywhere. Yet, behind the door of the changing room, there are untold stories simply because nobody has recorded them properly. Before filling the gap with speculation, a sports writer needs to learn how to say: I do not have sufficient evidence. The analysis I received that day outlined nine sections for evaluating a swimming event. From start technique, arm rotation, and touch finish to record comparison, medal table position, selection system, world map, doping regulations, athlete career, and even media risk. The framework was highly professional. But inside the frame, every cell carried the same text: N/A. At first I thought it was a technical error, a hasty publication step. The more I read, the more I realised this was a declaration: do not jump into analysis when the first piece of evidence is missing. This story reminds me of my early days as a swimming reporter at Thanh Nien newspaper. Back then I often received handwritten race results from provincial pools, with figures so blurry that I could not distinguish between 4 minutes 21 seconds and 4 minutes 27 seconds. An older colleague once told me: “If you are not sure of a number, leave it blank and write that it needs to be rechecked. Readers will forgive an article that is one day late; they will not forgive a fake record.” That advice stayed with me for two decades. In Nha Trang that year, I did not only open a women’s football commentary channel – I learned that respect for athletes begins with respect for the truth of data. That analysis had seven main empty sections. The technical section had no video or lap split data, so it was impossible to determine strengths or errors. The performance section had no result, so ranking was impossible. The competition system section had no event name. The world map section had no country or candidate. The regulations section had no specific rule. The career section had no name. The risk section also had only one risk: the risk of a hasty analyst. Imagine a swimming coach receiving such an analysis before a SEA Games selection round. He would feel abandoned in a forest of questions. But if he understood the message correctly, he would see a mirror: his own system is severely lacking in data. This shortage is not unique to swimming. During my years as a women’s football commentator, I came across countless reports that only recorded the final score, without shots on target, number of crosses, or distance covered by players. When the national women’s team won, people repeated the victory. When the team lost, they blamed luck. Both ways of speaking are equally empty, because no one asks: why did she score from that acute angle? Why did the defensive line lose concentration at minute 75? Was it because a player was injured, because of a drop in fitness, or because the coaching staff had no plan B? Without data, every answer is just a kind of silence in the changing room – where real voices are left behind the door. I went to Russia during the 2026 World Cup looking for answers to the same thing. At that time I was producing a documentary series called A Female Perspective and asked myself: where are the women in a tournament where all the main referees are men? I aired that question, and the response from the audience was an abyss of silence. Four years later, when Stéphanie Frappart officiated at the 2026 World Cup, I realised that the data vacuum of that year was not an answer, but a door. If I had looked at the N/A in the female referee list and simply written “there are none”, I would never have had the courage to ask “when will there be the first?”. Emptiness, when viewed properly, can become a programme for action. Now let us talk about a paradox in Vietnamese sports in the digital age. We have more measuring devices than before, slow-motion cameras at professional tournaments, tactical statistics software, but in-depth analytical articles about swimming – or women’s football – remain strangely scarce. Fans can easily find news about transfers, scandals, and male football dressing-room controversies. But real data about a national-level swimming competition is scattered in result sheets, waiting to be placed into a serious analytical framework. Here I do not mean that sports journalists are lazy. I mean that we live in a culture that prefers immediate emotion over verification. When there is no audience, we finally listen to the athlete. Because the audience usually only sees medals, while the dressing room sees sweat, tears and forgotten stories. In that empty analysis, the detail that stopped me longest was a note attached to every section: “Only make judgments when the data sample is large enough and the source is clear.” That note rarely appears in mainstream sports writing. Instead, people prefer to write statements as solid as nails. I suddenly remembered the times I mispronounced a player’s name or published an inaccurate number, then had to correct it very publicly. That feeling is not pleasant, but it taught me that honesty is not about saying everything I think, but saying only when I have sufficient grounds. Behind the changing-room door, there are untold stories because no one has bothered to record them. That is also when we need courage to write N/A instead of embellishing with imagination. I still remember an afternoon in Nha Trang, after publishing an interview with female footballer Chuong Thi Kieu, a fan sent me a long letter. She said: “Thank you for not speaking for the girls, but for letting them speak.” That letter reminded me of empowerment. In sports journalism, empowerment does not mean writing many sentences to lift a person up. Empowerment means knowing when to hold the microphone in front of the athlete, when to step back so they can tell their own story, and when to tell the world: I do not have enough data to assert anything. That perspective runs through my journey – from early swimming reports to the women’s football channel and the documentary series from Russia. Some may think writing N/A everywhere is a way to avoid responsibility. I disagree. It is a humble admission that sports science is still evolving. Look at how professional swimming data analysts progress worldwide: they constantly update electronic profiles, track each athlete for years, record every training session to know when the body signals overload. If we truly want to develop Vietnamese swimming, we must begin with seemingly boring tasks: counting lap times, measuring stroke rates, and carefully noting each competition. Then, when data becomes thick enough, medals will naturally turn into well-founded stories, not temporary luck. The story of the N/A analysis is not just about one article. It is about how Vietnamese sport sees itself. There have been too many debates driven by emotion, too many praises based on old achievements, and too few questions about the system behind each record. I want to believe that the younger generation of journalists today will dare to tell the public: “We need more time to verify. We need more data before making a judgment.” That courage is not flashy, not shocking, and may even be considered boring. But it is the foundation of a mature sports media. The voice from the changing room has never stopped echoing. It is just that between the empty stadium and the noisy crowd, we need to choose the right moment to listen. I once went to Russia with one question and received only more questions. Afterwards, I understood that some journeys do not bring answers, but bring patience. Similarly, an empty analysis may not present a conclusion, but it carries a promise: I will not say what I do not know, and I will not judge before listening. In sport, the most precious thing is sometimes not the medal, but the courage to admit that one is standing before a boundary of knowledge – and choosing to stand there calmly.