New Delhi: The Asian Games 2026 have run into an accommodation mess in Nagoya, with Indian athletes left waiting for rooms for several hours after arriving in Japan.
Indian MMA star Varun Sanyal has now confirmed the situation, revealing that he too was caught up in the long wait. Several Asian Games delegations faced delays after arriving in Nagoya, with a system failure affecting athlete information and preventing some competitors from boarding their designated shuttles. Sanyal, who will represent India in the traditional MMA 77kg category, confirmed the disruption on X and said he had already been waiting for seven hours.
Sanyal later detailed his own experience, describing a prolonged scramble between multiple venues before he was finally assigned accommodation.
The athlete travelled from London to Mumbai before joining the Indian contingent for the journey to Japan. He said the journey itself was lengthy, involving a flight from Mumbai or Delhi to Singapore, a layover of around five hours and another flight of roughly six hours to Nagoya.
On arrival, athletes were taken from the airport to a convention centre, where they were required to complete registration and receive their accreditation cards and accommodation details.
Sanyal said officials were unable to find his name in the system when he reached the registration counter, despite him having an accreditation card that also serves as his visa.
“I’m a total ghost in their system,” Sanyal said while recounting the incident.
He said the issue took around two hours to address, while other Indian officials were also waiting for their processes to be completed. After spending nearly three hours at the registration facility, Sanyal said he was directed to travel to the cruise ship where athletes were staying, without the accommodation issue being resolved.
The journey to the cruise ship took another 30 minutes to an hour. However, on reaching the venue, he found that staff there had not been informed about his situation.
Sanyal said the registration facility and the cruise ship had not properly coordinated with each other, forcing him to explain his situation again. Accommodation staff subsequently asked him to contact the Indian National Olympic Committee (NOC), saying they did not have a room assigned to him.
The athlete said there was also confusion over whether he was properly registered for the Games, even though he had received an accreditation card and had been cleared by immigration to enter Japan.
He was then directed by the NOC to another facility, requiring another shuttle journey. Sanyal said he spent around three hours there before finally being allocated a room.
He also highlighted the lack of food available to athletes during the prolonged process. According to Sanyal, water bottles were provided at the venues, but there was no food, while athletes could not simply leave the facilities to purchase something to eat.
After finally reaching his accommodation, Sanyal showered, ate and went to sleep, believing the ordeal was over. However, another room-related problem emerged shortly afterwards.
Around 30 minutes into his sleep, two Indian athletes entered the room and appeared confused. Sanyal said he discovered that although the room had been assigned to him, it had originally been allocated to the two athletes.
All three were consequently caught in another accommodation dispute, with both sets of athletes reportedly possessing keys to the same room.
Sanyal said he was uncertain whether he would be moved again or whether the two athletes would be relocated.
He also said the problem was not limited to the Indian contingent, claiming he encountered athletes from Tajikistan and Sri Lanka who were facing similar accommodation-related difficulties.
Describing the entire episode as “a mess”, Sanyal stressed that the problems surrounding accommodation and registration had created considerable uncertainty for athletes arriving in Nagoya for the Asian Games.
