Indian Athletes Wait Up To 14 Hours For Rooms In Nagoya Days Before Asian Games Open

Japan built its Asian Games reputation on precision. That reputation faltered in Nagoya this week.

Indian rowers and shooters landed for the 2026 Asian Games, set to open Friday, September 19. They encountered a housing crisis that left some of them waiting more than 14 hours for a room, according to The New Indian Express.

The Cruise Ship Didn't Have Enough Cabins

Organizers are housing up to 4,000 athletes and officials on the Costa Serena, a cruise ship docked at Nagoya Port with roughly 1,500 cabins, according to the Free Press Journal. It's part of a decentralized housing plan that also includes hotels and shipping-container units, instead of a traditional athletes' village.

That plan strained fast. Indian rowers reached the ship around 9 a.m. Japan Standard Time on Wednesday and were still waiting at 8:30 p.m., a rower told The New Indian Express. Even athletes who eventually got rooms were told to share, because organizers had allocated the same space to other national teams.

"It seems the organisers have miscalculated the number of athletes," the rower said.

The Rowing Federation of India said only three of 22 men's rowers had accommodation registered against their names, and three of five women rowers, Poonam, Aleena Anto and Anshika Bharati, weren't in the hosts' system at all despite holding valid accreditation, a federation official told the Times of India. The Sports Authority of India separately told women's coach Ratheesh Kumar and team manager Ramakrishnan Ramachandran they'd need to sort their own accommodation.

Shooters fared no better. After landing at 9 p.m. Tuesday, they waited three hours for transport with no food available, a team member told the Times of India. "Everything was closed at the airport. The welcome centre had no information," the athlete said. They didn't reach a hotel until 4 a.m., and even then were shifted to a different property after their original facility was given to another delegation, according to The New Indian Express.

Some athletes leaned on food they'd packed from India, while organizers offered only water during the wait, per the Free Press Journal, citing The New Indian Express's reporting.

Not every team hit the same wall. The wushu squad briefly had one player and two coaches missing from the accommodation list before an Indian Olympic Association official confirmed rooms were found, and India's table tennis contingent called the process slow but manageable, according to the Free Press Journal.

The Oars Went To Delhi Instead

The rowers' trouble started before they even landed. Cathay Pacific would not let one group check in their oars ahead of Tuesday night's flight out of Mumbai, so the equipment was rerouted and flown to Delhi instead, the Times of India reported. The oars aren't due into Nagoya until Thursday morning, barely ahead of the team's first official practice session.

India's pistol shooting head coach, Samaresh Jung, also found his accreditation didn't grant him access to the athletes' arena or field of play during competition. Officials attributed the error to how his credential was processed, per the Times of India.

Eight Athletes Still Stuck In Delhi, And A Denial

Separately from the Nagoya chaos, eight athletes and two coaches, including high jumper Supriya B, pole vaulter Sindhushree G, hammer thrower Praveen Kumar, 200m runner Harita Bhadra, quarter-miler Kiran Pahal, heptathlete Anamika KA and triple jumper Asha Ilango, remained in New Delhi awaiting visa clearance as of September 15, according to Gulf News. The group made multiple trips to the visa office over ten days without success, and a Ganesh Chaturthi holiday threatened to slow things further, Gulf News reported.

These athletes were late additions to the squad after strong performances at the National Inter-State Senior Athletics Championships in Bhubaneswar in June, and their accreditation was processed separately from the main contingent, which Gulf News says contributed to the holdup. The delay matters because they were due at a preparatory camp at Tsukuba University ahead of athletics events starting September 23.

Athletics Federation of India spokesman Adille Sumariwalla disputes that any visa problem exists at all. "Not at all. Accreditation cards are visas," Sumariwalla told thebridge.in on September 15, describing reports of 4-5 athletes awaiting clearance as inaccurate. That's a smaller number than the eight Gulf News and Deccan Herald reported, and Sumariwalla's position is that the accreditation process itself functions as the visa, meaning there's no separate document holding anyone back. Neither Gulf News nor thebridge.in resolves which figure is accurate, and no outlet confirms whether all eight athletes have since reached Japan.

India's own preparation wasn't flawless either. The Sports Authority of India ran cultural etiquette briefings on littering, tattoos and public conduct, and pushed for halal meals and Indian restaurant mapping near hotels, deputy chef de mission Achanta Sharath Kamal told Sportstar, as reported by The Hindu. Organizers also cut planned container occupancy from four athletes to two per unit after India and other countries objected, and moved boxing weigh-ins to team hotels to ease logistics, The Hindu reported. Typhoons and recent flooding in the region added weather strain absent from Sharath's earlier visits, when conditions were closer to 40 degrees Celsius and clear.

None of that changes what happened at the port this week. With the opening ceremony three days out and athletics competition starting September 23, the open question is whether Nagoya's housing math gets fixed before more delegations arrive, and whether the eight athletes in Delhi make it to Tsukuba in time to train at all.