Athletes highlight several issues in arrangements, including improper accommodation and delays in paperwork
\n Tokyo
\nThe Asian Games in Japan were on Friday facing more accusations of poor organisation with a world champion gymnast \u201ctotally exhausted\u201d, the public drafted in to rescue stranded athletes and South Korea lodging a complaint about a Japanese warlord.
\nThe continent\u2019s premier sporting spectacle opens in Nagoya and Aichi prefecture on Saturday, but the build-up has been soured by several issues.
\nThat includes a shortage of rooms for the more than 17,000 athletes and officials \u2014 a bigger number than the Olympics.
\nSome teams have also criticised the quality of the accommodation, including beds that are too short.
\nTo save money there is no athletes\u2019 village, organisers are instead putting competitors in hotels, temporary cabins and on a cruise ship.
\nOrganisers say the accommodation is safe, cost-effective and comfortable.
\nChinese gymnast Zhang Boheng, who won two silver medals at the Paris Olympics and has two world championship titles to his name, said he and some of his team-mates were left waiting for six hours after landing on Wednesday.
\n\u201cI\u2019m totally exhausted,\u201d he said in a video published on Thursday and shared widely on Chinese social media.
\n\u201cI didn\u2019t expect that after breakfast at 7:00am the next time I could eat would be close to 7:00pm,\u201d the 26-year-old said.
\nHe said the wait was caused by registration and paperwork before heading to the cruise ship where 4,000 Games participants will be housed in Nagoya\u2019s port area.
\nBut when they arrived at the ship, he said heavy rain prevented them from boarding.
\n\u201cA whole day was basically wasted like this,\u201d added Zhang.
\n\u201cIn the end we really couldn\u2019t take it any more so we decided to book rooms at a hotel to rest.\u201d
\nThe video has since been taken down, but Chinese state media said that other Chinese athletes also faced travel delays upon arrival.
\nBeijing\u2019s consulate in Nagoya contacted Chinese citizens in the area to give the badminton team lifts after issues with a shuttle bus and a shortage of public transport tickets, Xinhua reported.
\nChinese social media users applauded athletes, including table tennis star Sun Yingsha, for stretching and exercising at the airport.
\nIndia\u2019s team had similar delays at the airport.
\n\u201cThere was an issue in getting accreditation for athletes at the airport during immigration. There were long queues with a lot of other nations there,\u201d India\u2019s chef de mission and Indian Olympic Association (IOA) treasurer Sahdev Yadav told AFP.
\n\u201cBut these things happen and we have got everything sorted.
\nHe added: \u201cThese are all teething problems and our focus is now on performance.\u201d
\nWarlord controversy
\nSouth Korea\u2019s Yonhap news agency reported that some of the country\u2019s athletes waited at the airport for more than five hours on Thursday.
\n\u201cWe are aware of the situation including reports that athletes have had to wait for hours and we are doing our best to handle it,\u201d a Korean Sport and Olympic Committee (KSOC) official told AFP.
\nAlso on Friday, the KSOC said it had filed a complaint with Games organisers for featuring a Japanese warlord at a welcoming ceremony.
\nThe event on Tuesday included a person dressed as Toyotomi Hideyoshi, who led Japan\u2019s invasions of Korea in 1592-1598, and the ceremony prompted a backlash in South Korea.
\nHistorical issues are sensitive between South Korea and Japan, with Hideyoshi\u2019s invasion a significant episode in Korean history and Korea under Japanese colonial rule from 1910 to 1945.
\nThere was no immediate response from the Olympic Council of Asia or the local organising committee.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Athletes highlight several issues in arrangements, including improper accommodation and delays in paperwork Tokyo The Asian Games in Japan were on Friday facing more accusations of poor organisation with a world champion gymnast \u201ctotally exhausted\u201d, the public drafted in to rescue stranded athletes and South Korea lodging a complaint about a Japanese warlord. The continent\u2019s …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":103163,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-103152","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103152","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=103152"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103152\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":103164,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103152\/revisions\/103164"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/103163"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=103152"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=103152"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=103152"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}