Operational mishaps keep surfacing at the Asian Games currently underway in Aichi/Nagoya. Thailand’s delegation was reportedly turned away from their lodging and forced to spend the night outdoors, and during the South Korea match the anthem played was North Korea’s national anthem instead of South Korea’s. Threads on 5ch are full of comments calling it ‘the worst Asian Games in history,’ while others defend the organizers, arguing ‘Asian Games have always been like this, not just when Japan hosts,’ and some point out that the room shortage stemmed from events being added to the schedule just before the Games began — leaving opinion split over who’s really to blame.
What people said
1AnonymousSep 18, 2026 20:02
Thailand's delegation gets turned away from their hotel, sparking global outrage
↓
North Korea's anthem plays during the South Korea match
5AnonymousSep 18, 2026 20:03
Sounds like the Thai athletes ended up sleeping outside after all
95AnonymousSep 18, 2026 21:00
Re: #5
Why couldn't they find the registered names?
Is the hotel staff really the one at fault here?
6AnonymousSep 18, 2026 20:04
Close-up of the South Korean flag, then North Korea's anthem plays
https://x.com/PonChak_mania/status/2100868430702489631
66AnonymousSep 18, 2026 20:40
Re: #6
Funny how even the Koreans in here are staying calm about it lol
Guess the smartphone generation really is this jaded everywhere in the world
8AnonymousSep 18, 2026 20:05
By the way, apparently the contractor running operations is the same one who never paid its construction bills for the Osaka Expo
76AnonymousSep 18, 2026 20:48
Re: #8
That thing's still going?
11AnonymousSep 18, 2026 20:06
Had to laugh at people calling this the worst Asian Games ever
14AnonymousSep 18, 2026 20:08
It's Nagoya
Of course — the Chunichi Dragons are basically its only redeeming quality ("Chuni" = local slang for the Chunichi Dragons baseball team, often joked about as the city's only claim to fame)
92AnonymousSep 18, 2026 21:00
Re: #14
Is that really something to brag about?
Isn't that more of an embarrassment?
15AnonymousSep 18, 2026 20:09
Taking soccer players to a baseball stadium
The athletes' hotel stinks so bad the players are sleeping at the venue instead
Meals are nothing but rice balls
The athletes' village facilities don't even have a roof — worse than a refugee camp
— and that list's still missing stuff
24AnonymousSep 18, 2026 20:14
There's a video of the Soviet anthem playing for the Russian team too — same level of screwup
28AnonymousSep 18, 2026 20:18
Good thing they let Seoul host the Olympics instead (lol) (Nagoya famously lost its bid for the 1988 Summer Olympics to Seoul)
29AnonymousSep 18, 2026 20:18
Heard that when they tried to just use hotels, they got scolded and told to build an athletes' village
I mean, tens of thousands of people are coming — hotels alone were never going to cut it
30AnonymousSep 18, 2026 20:18
Aichi doesn't even have the capacity to host something at the Asian Games level — that's rough
34AnonymousSep 18, 2026 20:20
As for the Thai team thing, that was a bold call — flatly refusing people who might've been impostors
35AnonymousSep 18, 2026 20:20
Why'd they even hold this out in the countryside where the facilities aren't up to scratch in the first place?
36AnonymousSep 18, 2026 20:21
Seems like Japanese people have lost even their ability to handle paperwork, coordinate logistics, and just double-check things
40AnonymousSep 18, 2026 20:25
There are linesmen at the volleyball matches
Does an international tournament even still do that?
Is the sport itself being run half-assed too?
52AnonymousSep 18, 2026 20:33
Re: #40
Wait, linesmen?
You mean they're calling it by eye?
In this day and age?
44AnonymousSep 18, 2026 20:28
This is supposedly the biggest event in Asia after the Olympics, so if they don't get it together I'm filing a real complaint
48AnonymousSep 18, 2026 20:29
Re: #44
Japan doesn't have the national strength to host international events anymore, so might as well just let them show off the mess
80AnonymousSep 18, 2026 20:53
As for the lodging, the OCA's the one to blame — they approved adding events at the last minute even after being told it wouldn't work
81AnonymousSep 18, 2026 20:55
Re: #80
No, actually — the organizing committee already announced they've dealt with it
84AnonymousSep 18, 2026 20:56
Well, now we know Nagoya shouldn't be hosting international events
93AnonymousSep 18, 2026 21:00
Re: #84
Correction:
not "Nagoya" —
"Japan"
87AnonymousSep 18, 2026 20:57
Apparently each country supplies its own anthem audio, so this one's on whoever handled South Korea's audio file
91AnonymousSep 18, 2026 20:59
Re: #87
Nah, you'd normally check the audio file before playing it though…
96AnonymousSep 18, 2026 21:01
Probably nothing but powerless temp workers on site with zero authority — wouldn't be surprised if they rounded people up through Timee and just left them to it (Timee is a popular Japanese gig-work/spot-job app)
99AnonymousSep 18, 2026 21:02
Re: #96 ← this might just be spreading misinformation
102AnonymousSep 18, 2026 21:02
As usual, it's hell watching ordinary Japanese people spew hate on X and drag Japan's reputation down even further
109AnonymousSep 18, 2026 21:06
Why's it so empty in there?
111AnonymousSep 18, 2026 21:07
Re: #109
If nobody knows what's actually going on
Of course no one's going to show up
Background and key points of debate
The Asian Games are considered Asia’s largest multi-sport event after the Olympics, and host-city operations tend to draw close scrutiny from international media. In this case, events were added to the schedule shortly before the Games began, pushing attendance past the hotel capacity originally planned — one factor behind the lodging trouble — and thread opinion is split over whether responsibility lies with the organizing committee or with the OCA. As for the anthem mix-up, since the operational setup simply plays whatever audio file each country provides, it’s likely a clerical error from inadequate checking rather than any intentional political provocation — a distinction that’s easy to overlook. It’s also a common pattern in coverage of this kind of international event that criticism aimed at the host city, “Nagoya,” quickly escalates into broader judgments about “Japan” as a whole.
Leave a Reply