Asian Games 2026 Live Updates: India’s campaign begins with teqball

Asian Games 2026 Live Updates: India will begin its Asian Games 2026 campaign today, two days before the official opening ceremony in Aichi-Nagoya, Japan, with teqball providing the country's first action at the continental multi-sport event.

Declan Marshall Gonsalves and Mohamed Anas Imran Beg will make history as the first Indian athletes to compete at the Games. The men's doubles pair enters the competition with proven international credentials, having secured India's maiden teqball medal — a bronze at the 2024 World Championships in Vietnam.

Teqball, which originated in Hungary, combines football skills with a specially designed curved table. The sport can broadly be seen as a combination of freestyle football and sepak takraw played on a table tennis-style surface. Gonsalves and Beg have been drawn in Group B and will face Vietnam's Truong Giang Ba and Anh Khoa Le before taking on the Republic of Korea's Junsuk Lee and Taebeen Lee at Nagoya City Higashi Sports Center. The quarter-finals are scheduled later the same day, with progression depending on their group-stage results and a repechage route also available.

Teqball is making its Asian Games debut at Aichi-Nagoya, with five medal events — men's and women's singles, men's and women's doubles, and mixed doubles — scheduled from September 17 to 20. Each event features a round-robin group stage followed by knockouts.

India has three teqball athletes at the Games. Beg will also partner Quimcy Dsouza in mixed doubles, while Dsouza will compete in women's singles. The Asian Games officially run from September 19 to October 4, although some competitions begin before the opening ceremony.

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07:21 (IST) Sep 17

Asian Games 2026 Live: Neeraj Chopra's absence changes the javelin equation

The men's javelin throw will have an intriguing South Asian dimension, particularly after Sri Lanka's Rumesh Tharanga Pathirage produced a major breakthrough on the international stage. Pathirage recently won the javelin competition at the World Athletics Ultimate Championship in Budapest, putting him in a strong position heading into the Asian Games. His emergence has added another name to a discipline that has been dominated by some of the continent's biggest athletics stars.

Pakistan's Arshad Nadeem, the defending Olympic champion, is also expected to compete, although he finished fifth in Budapest.

India's Neeraj Chopra, the Tokyo 2020 Olympic champion, will not be part of the Aichi-Nagoya field after missing the Games with an ankle injury. His absence removes one of the biggest names from the event, while Pathirage's recent form and Nadeem's pedigree set up an interesting contest for continental supremacy.

07:08 (IST) Sep 17

Asian Games 2026 Live: Alex Eala puts Asian Games gold ahead of a major WTA event

For some athletes, the attraction of the Asian Games goes beyond rankings and individual tournament schedules. Philippine tennis star Alex Eala is an example. The world No. 18 is expected to compete in Aichi-Nagoya after choosing to skip the WTA 1000 China Open, a mandatory tournament on the women's tennis calendar.

Eala has spoken enthusiastically about representing the Philippines and described competing alongside her national team as a particularly enjoyable experience. Her attachment to multi-sport events was also evident when she reflected on last year's Southeast Asian Games, saying certain memories from that competition had stayed with her.

The Asian Games are held only once every four years, making them a rare opportunity to compete for a continental title as part of a national delegation. Eala already has two bronze medals from Hangzhou and will now chase a step higher on the podium, even though skipping a mandatory WTA event could carry ranking and financial consequences.

07:08 (IST) Sep 17

Asian Games 2026 Live: Badminton brings Olympic champions into the spotlight

Badminton is one of the sports that can give the Asian Games an atmosphere closer to a major global championship, particularly because some of Asia's biggest stars compete for continental honours.

South Korea's An Se-young is one of the leading names in the field. The women's singles Olympic champion from Paris is also the world's top-ranked player and arrives with an imposing recent record. She won the women's singles gold medal at the Hangzhou Asian Games three years ago and also contributed to South Korea's team gold. Her form remains strong after another China Masters title, her third in succession, and a world title earlier this year. Yet An has suggested that the Asian Games carry a different kind of significance. She told South Korean news agency Yonhap that the event could feel similar to other international tournaments, but reaching the top of the podium would mean hearing her country's national anthem — a distinction that gives the Games an added emotional dimension.

07:07 (IST) Sep 17

Asian Games 2026 Live: China dominates — and swimming could produce more fireworks

If there is one sporting power that has traditionally defined the Asian Games, it is China.

At the Hangzhou Games, China won a staggering 201 gold medals, compared with 52 for Japan and 42 for South Korea, underlining the scale of its dominance. That pattern is expected to continue in Aichi-Nagoya, with swimming among the sports likely to attract major attention during the opening days.

China is expected to field several Olympic champions, including Pan Zhanle, Wang Shun, Qin Haiyang and Xu Jiayu. Pan holds the world record in the men's 100m freestyle, while Qin has the global mark in the 200m breaststroke. There is also considerable curiosity around China's teenage swimming sensation Yu Zidi. At just 12, she finished fourth in three events at the 2025 World Championships in Singapore. Now 13, she will be among the young athletes attracting attention as the Asian Games swimming programme gets underway.

07:06 (IST) Sep 17

Asian Games 2026 Live: From New Delhi 1951 to Aichi-Nagoya 2026

The Asian Games have come a long way since the inaugural edition was held in New Delhi in 1951.

Aichi-Nagoya 2026 will mark the 20th edition of the continental multi-sport event, which has grown dramatically in both participation and sporting scope over the decades.

The previous edition was held in Hangzhou, China, in 2023 after being postponed by a year because of the Covid-19 pandemic. Around 12,000 athletes took part in those Games, underlining how the Asian Games have developed into one of the world's biggest multi-sport events.

The 2026 edition will again bring together athletes from across the continent, with 45 countries and regions represented. While the Olympics remain the bigger global sporting spectacle in terms of reach and profile, the Asian Games provide a much broader competitive platform for athletes from nations that rarely feature prominently at the Olympics.

07:05 (IST) Sep 17

Asian Games 2026 Live: Bigger than the Summer Olympics in numbers

The sheer scale of the Asian Games can be difficult to grasp until it is put alongside the Olympics. The 2024 Paris Summer Olympics featured around 10,700 athletes, while the Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games are set to welcome more than 11,000 athletes when the event opens in Japan on Saturday.

That figure could rise further, with organisers acknowledging a late surge in the number of athletes and officials travelling to the Games. The increase has already created pressure on accommodation and logistics.

The Asian Games, therefore, are not simply a continental version of the Olympics in terms of sporting prestige; in terms of numbers, venues, accommodation, transport and daily operations, they represent an enormous undertaking. With delegations arriving from across Asia, the scale becomes even more apparent.

07:04 (IST) Sep 17

Asian Games 2026 Live: India's campaign begins today

Hello and welcome to the live coverage of the Asian Games 2026 from Aichi-Nagoya, Japan.

India’s campaign gets underway two days before the official opening ceremony, with teqball marking the country’s first action at the continental Games today.

Indian men’s doubles pair Declan Marshall Gonsalves and Mohamed Anas Imran Beg will be the first Indian athletes to take the field, as they begin their campaign in the historic Asian Games debut of teqball.

Asian Games 2026 Live Updates: India's Asian Games 2026 campaign begins two days before the official opening ceremony, with teqball taking centre stage today in Aichi-Nagoya, Japan. Indian men's doubles pair Declan Marshall Gonsalves and Mohamed Anas Imran Beg will be the country's first athletes in action at the continental Games.

Invented in Hungary, teqball combines football skills with a curved table, creating a sport that blends elements of freestyle football and sepak takraw. Gonsalves and Beg already have a major achievement to their name, having won India's first-ever teqball medal — a men's doubles bronze at the 2024 World Championships in Vietnam.

The pair has been placed in Group B and will begin its campaign against Vietnam's Truong Giang Ba and Anh Khoa Le, followed by a clash against the Republic of Korea's Junsuk Lee and Taebeen Lee. Both matches will be held at Nagoya City Higashi Sports Center, with the quarter-finals scheduled later in the day. A repechage route is also available.

Teqball is making its Asian Games debut in Aichi-Nagoya, with five medal events being held from September 17 to 20. India has three athletes in the competition, with Anas Imran Beg also featuring in mixed doubles alongside Quimcy Dsouza, who will compete in women's singles.