The women of the Vietnamese national weightlifting team are strong. They are medal contenders at international competitions, which is not typical for many of the nation’s sports teams. They are remarkable not just for their physical skill but also for overcoming Vietnamese cultural norms. In his book Saigon’s Edge, Erik Harms uses the term ‘edginess’ to think about the lives of people on the outskirts of Ho Chi Minh City, moving between cultural ideals of rural and urban and the messier realities of the city. Similarly, these athletes live on the edge: building their lives around competing under the Vietnamese flag on a global stage, while eschewing standards of femininity in Vietnam.

Weightlifting as a sport is composed of two separate, highly technical lifts, in which the athlete quickly moves a loaded barbell from the floor to a still, overhead position. The lifts require strength but also flexibility, speed and precision. The adrenaline channelled in each lift is shared with the audience sonically as their hard-soled lifting shoes hit the platform and as the athletes drop the barbell from overhead. Athletes compete by weight class, meaning some are as small as 45kg and as large as 180kg in body weight. At the elite level, they could be lifting one-and-a-half or two times their body weight overhead.

• Tags: Annika Yates, Issue 29, Vietnam