Team Japan Searches for Backup Rooms at Its Own Asian Games

The Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games are set to officially open on Saturday, but housing problems are causing headaches for athletes and organizers alike. Even Japan's own team — the host country — is looking for backup hotel rooms after some athletes were placed in rooms with the wrong people. Officials say that in some cases, male and female athletes were assigned to share the same rooms, which created uncomfortable situations for everyone involved.

The local organizing committee decided not to build a traditional Athletes' Village for this year's Games. Instead, they came up with creative solutions to house around 17,000 athletes and officials. One of those solutions was an Italian cruise ship that arrived on Tuesday and can house up to 4,000 participants. Another 2,000 athletes and officials are staying in shipping-container-style huts near Japan's biggest port.

Japan's deputy Chef de Mission, Hisashi Mizutori, spoke at a press conference on Thursday. He explained that when athletes first arrived at the cruise ship village, they had to wait a very long time to check in. Some athletes were stuck waiting for several hours because their entry credentials — the documents proving who they are — were not working properly.

Mizutori also described the room assignment problems in more detail. He said that in some cases, five twin rooms were given to a group of five men and five women. While the number of rooms matched the number of people on paper, in practice it meant men and women were being placed together. Coaches were also sometimes assigned to share rooms with athletes, and trainers who needed space for heavy medical equipment were grouped together in ways that didn't work well.

Organizers say the housing crunch happened because they originally planned for 15,000 people. However, new sports were added to the Games, and the number of participants grew to 17,000. Last week, organizers and the Olympic Council of Asia released a joint statement promising that all 17,000 participants would have a guaranteed place to stay.

Japan's Olympic Committee had already guessed that housing might be a problem. Because of this, the committee booked extra hotel rooms in the city of Nagoya as a backup plan. Mizutori, who is also a former Olympic gymnastics champion, said the team is working hard to fix room assignments where it can. For cases that are too difficult to sort out, Japan's team will use those backup hotel rooms instead.