Accommodation woes hit Asian Games hosts Japan

Accommodation issues continued to plague the lead-up to the Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games yesterday with even the hosts looking at alternative arrangements after cases in which male and female athletes were allocated shared rooms.

Local organizers, having decided not to build a dedicated Athletes’ Village, looked to creative accommodation options to house the 17,000 competitors and officials arriving for the Games, which officially open tomorrow.

An Italian cruise ship which is to host 4,000 participants arrived on Tuesday and 2,000 other athletes and officials would be accommodated in shipping-container style huts in the dock area of Japan’s biggest port.

A staff member walks past wooden container units built to house athletes ahead of the Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games in Nagoya, Japan, on Tuesday.

Photo: Reuters

“Since the cruise ship village opened yesterday, athletes have been arriving and going through the entry procedures,” Japanese Deputy Chef de Mission Hisashi Mizutori told a news conference.

“However, the process took a significant amount of time, and due to issues with activation of their credentials, we have received reports that some athletes were left waiting for several hours,” he said.

“There have been cases where coaches, team officials, and athletes have been assigned to the same room. There are also situations where room assignments were made purely based on the numbers, such as assigning five twin rooms for a group of five men and five women,” Mizutori said.

“While the numbers match on paper, practically it creates challenging situations such as men and women being assigned together, coaches being assigned with athletes, or trainers who need to accommodate a lot of medical equipment being assigned together,” he said.

The local organizing committee maintains that the accommodation issue arose because they were expecting 15,000 athletes and officials for the Games, only for numbers to increase as new sports were added.

In a joint statement with the Olympic Council of Asia last week, the Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games Organizing Committee said numbers would be capped at 17,000 with all of those guaranteed a place to stay.

The Japanese Olympic Committee (JOC) had anticipated accommodation “challenges” and had secured hotel rooms in the city as a backup, Mizutori said.

“We heard that the accommodation allocations are extremely tight,” said the former Olympic champion gymnast, who also sits on the JOC executive board.

“We are currently working to coordinate and negotiate adjustments wherever possible. For cases where that proves too difficult, we are considering using the backup accommodations that Team Japan prepared in advance as alternatives,” he added.