No room for worry as Asian Games chief defends unique lodging

NAGOYA: Organisers of the Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games have dismissed concerns over athlete accommodation after reports surfaced that some participants were unable to secure lodging.

Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games coordination committee chairman Mohammad Tayyab Ikram said on Friday that facility allocations were complete and all participants had comfortable lodging.

An athletes' village was not built for the Games as a cost-cutting measure.

Instead, participants are staying in hotels, container-style accommodation, and a cruise ship docked at the Garden Pier in Nagoya port.

"Even today, our team was in the Garden Pier, and I think I would also welcome you all to look there," Ikram, who is also an Olympic Council of Asia (OCA) member, said during a press conference in Nagoya.

"It is easy to mention container houses, but please go and see yourself. It is a very good facility for the athletes.

"We don't want to leave a 'white elephant' after the Games here. They were not easy discussions, but it was also not a compromise because then we found very unique alternatives... we are happy with what our colleagues in Nagoya did."

OCA added teqball to the sports programme in February and padel in March.

This increased the total number of participating athletes from an initial 15,000 to over 17,000, even as the International Olympic Committee was seeking to reduce sports at the Olympics.

Despite the growing numbers, OCA director-general Husain A.H.Z. Al-Musallam said there are no plans to cap athlete participation at future Asian Games.

"We choose not to sacrifice the athletes. We want every athlete to have the possibility and chance to compete," he said.

"Because now with the current political crisis and conflicts in Asia and around the world, we need sport. The world needs sport at this moment more than anything else." – BERNAMA-KYODO