Asian Games: China athletes stuck at Nagoya airport with no food, way out for seven hours

Athletes from multiple countries arriving in Japan for the 20th Asian Games were stranded at Nagoya airport because of a technical glitch, leaving some Chinese team members stuck for seven hours without food.

According to state media, the plane carrying the country’s delegation from Beijing landed on schedule at around 12.15pm, with buses already waiting at Chubu Centrair International Airport to take them to their accommodation.

However, athletes and officials soon found themselves trapped at the transport centre after a data entry error meant many of them were not listed in the departure system.

With only water available, officials, coaches and athletes from numerous countries and places had to find a space to sit down.

An Indian rowing coach said his team had landed at around 10am but were stuck at the transit hub for more than four hours.

“Staff members could not find our athletes’ information in their system, so they couldn’t arrange vehicles,” the coach said. “There are teams that arrived even earlier, two or three hours before us, who still haven’t boarded buses.”

China’s gymnasts told a similar story. Of the 21-strong squad, only the information for two athletes was available, preventing the whole team from being able to leave.

During the wait, several Chinese athletes unrolled yoga mats and pulled out foam rollers and resistance bands to stay limber. Among them was table tennis star Sun Yingsha, who was seen stretching in a video.

“Nobody could tell us when the buses would arrive; everything was just waiting,” one delegation member said, adding that staff appeared equally bewildered when asked. “Everyone was just asking each other.”

China’s badminton team took matters into their own hands, and tried to take public transport. But with insufficient tickets available, only a few of the team were able to get away.

Staff from the Chinese Consulate-General in Nagoya relied on the services of Chinese citizens living nearby to drive the rest to where they were staying soon after.

Members of the table tennis, wushu and rowing teams finally got buses around 5pm, while the gymnastics team did not leave for another hour, nearly six hours after landing at Nagoya airport.

The last members of the delegation did not leave the airport until around 7pm.

“We barely ate anything all day. It’s been over five hours since we got off the plane and we’re exhausted, sleepy and hungry, with training scheduled for tomorrow,” one athlete said.

Another athlete, who was only partly joking, said the ordeal had been “harder than the actual competition”.

Discussing the incident on his social media, Chinese gymnast Zhang Boheng called his arrival at the Games an “awkward trip,” and said it was “outrageous” that he had not eaten for 12 hours.

In his video, he outlined his day, which involved waking at 3.30am, having breakfast just after 7am, boarding his flight at 8am and landing in Nagoya at noon, only to then be trapped at the airport until 6pm.

“By the end, I really couldn’t hold on any more,” he said.

Zhang and his teammates had been assigned accommodation on the Costa Serena cruise ship, which is being used to house around 4,000 of the 17,000 athletes and officials in Japan for the Games.

However, the heavy rain that has battered Nagoya for the past week left Zhang and his team stuck in the athletes’ village, where containers are being used as rooms for competitors.

They ultimately decided to check into a local hotel to rest, which left Zhang “extremely, extremely tired”, and ruing a “wasted day”. -- SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST

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