The Asian Games opened Friday evening at Paloma Mizuho Stadium in Nagoya, Japan, with more than 11,000 athletes from 45 nations set to compete across 43 sports over the next two weeks, even as organizers watched a tropical storm track toward the host region.
The Games, running through October 4, mark the third time Japan has hosted the continental multi-sport event and the first time the competition has folded in surfing, freestyle BMX, mixed martial arts, padel, teqball and virtual taekwondo as new additions to the program. Several disciplines, including hockey, squash, archery, sailing, tennis and triathlon, double as qualifying events for the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics, raising the stakes for competitors from China, Japan, South Korea, India and dozens of other federations.
Weather and Logistics Test Organizers
Preparations were complicated in the run-up to the opening ceremony by tropical storm Dujuan, which was tracking northwest toward central Japan with sustained winds of around 90 kilometers per hour. The storm's approach followed a bout of record rainfall the previous week that briefly forced the evacuation of athletes from shipping-container-style lodgings built to house part of the record turnout. Nagoya Mayor Ichiro Hirosawa said organizers were not worried about the conditions of the venues, which he said had held up through the flooding.
Organizers have also had to manage an accommodation shortfall after underestimating turnout: bids were built around an expected 15,000 athletes and officials, but the field grew past 17,000 once the six new sports were added to the program. To close the gap, several thousand athletes are being housed aboard the cruise ship Costa Serena, while roughly 2,000 more are staying in wooden container-style huts near the venues, an arrangement that drew complaints over undersized beds and cramped, mixed-gender room assignments, according to Al Jazeera's coverage of the buildup.
Transportation mishaps also surfaced ahead of the ceremony, including South Korea's football squad being mistakenly routed to a baseball stadium instead of its training venue. Organizing officials said they did not expect the logistical issues to affect the competition schedule once events begin in earnest this weekend.
The opening ceremony, built around the theme "Harmonic Heart Beat" under creative director Yukihiko Tsutsumi, featured Nagoya's mascot, HONOHON, a mythical tiger-headed, carp-bodied figure inspired by the ornamental shachihoko atop nearby Nagoya Castle, as competition formally begins Saturday across the Aichi region's 54 venues.
