Four‑hour delay at the hotel, no breakfast, and a bus that never showed up set the tone for Team India’s pre‑Asian Games scramble. The men’s and women’s squads, along with their coaches, were housed in three separate hotels—each more than four kilometres from the training ground at Tsukuba—forcing them to cross the city for every meal.
The men’s squad was blindsided when their hotel staff announced that no breakfast had been booked. The hotel’s staff claimed they had not received any notification from the Athletics Federation of India (AFI) to serve the athletes. “Many athletes went without food that morning,” one source told the press, adding that a handful tried to scavenge a quick bite elsewhere.
The lunch and dinner situation was no better. The athletes had to drive four kilometres out of the hotel to find an Indian restaurant where they were served rice, roti, and chicken—no special diet or fruit, which would have been expensive in Japan. “It’s a basic meal, but it’s not what we’re used to training on,” a senior coach sighed.
Monday evening brought another blow: the designated bus didn’t arrive to pick the athletes up for the training session. The team was left stranded, scrambling to find alternate transport. “We had to coordinate with local drivers on the spot,” another source recounted.
With the Asian Games just days away, this logistical blunder underscores the need for tighter coordination by the AFI. If such oversights continue, athletes might struggle with energy levels and morale during the competition.
The next challenge for Team India is to focus on the training schedules at the University of Tsukuba ground while the federation works to iron out the remaining administrative kinks.