Transport problems at the 2026 Asian Games in Aichi-Nagoya have continued to cause difficulty for attending teams with South Korea the latest side to experience a venue mix-up. The South Korean men’s volleyball team was taken to the wrong training venue by an organiser-provided shuttle bus, forcing the team to cancel its scheduled practice.
The incident came only a day after Pakistan’s men’s volleyball team had the same problem. In both cases, teams boarded buses that took them to the wrong destinations. The repeated incidents have raised questions about how transportation is done at an Asian Games which has thousands of athletes and officials.
According to an official from the Korea Volleyball Association, the South Korean team was supposed to go to Inuyama for training but instead went to Okazaki. The two locations are around an hour apart, so the team lost significant time before it could fix the error.
"An organiser-provided shuttle bus took our team to Okazaki instead of its training venue in Inuyama yesterday morning," the official said. “We lost so much time to go back to the correct location so we cancelled the training session,” he said.
The Korea Volleyball Association subsequently filed a formal complaint with the organisers through the Korean Sport & Olympic Committee, or KSOC. The issue of disruption to team preparation before its match against Taiwan was highlighted in the complaint.
Despite the canceled practice, South Korea was able to beat Taiwan 3-1. The fact was the transport error did not prevent the team from getting a positive result in its following volleyball match.
The South Korean volleyball incident occurred only one day after Pakistan’s men’s volleyball team experienced a similar transportation problem. Pakistan’s team was also taken to an incorrect venue, and the team’s captain Murad Jehan described the incident as another example of mismanagement at the ongoing Asian Games in a video shared on Instagram.
The repeated problem of the same issue in such a short period of time has brought additional attention to the Games' transport system. With so many athletes staying in different accommodation facilities and travelling between training and competition venues, accurate coordination between teams, buses and destinations is important.
The local organizing committee acknowledged the mistakes involving Pakistan and South Korea. The spokesperson Ayumi Sakamoto said that both teams left the same accommodation and there had been an error in matching teams with the vehicles assigned to them.
Sakamoto apologised to the affected teams and said the organising committee was taking the matter seriously. The committee also said it would strengthen procedures for checking which teams board particular vehicles and ensure that destinations are clearly displayed.
The recent incidents are part of larger logistical challenges experienced by the Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games. There are more than 17,000 athletes and officials in the event, and accommodation and transportation are very much needed to accommodate them. Organisers had also faced higher than expected numbers than they had anticipated.
South Korea had another transport-related problem earlier in the Games. Its men's basketball team missed a training session when the bus assigned to the team failed to arrive. The team was able to win its final against Japan and earn the title.
The repeated incidents have once again illustrated the importance of transportation planning for a multi-sport event in several places. Training and competition are very tightly orchestrated, so even a short delay can result in a missed practice or disturbance in preparation.
For the South Korean volleyball team, the first setback was the cancellation of its training session at Inuyama. But the team’s 3-1 win over Taiwan showed that the disruption did not prevent it from succeeding.
The organising committee has now promised to enhance the checks for buses, destinations and team assignments. Making sure the athletes go to the right venues on time is going to be the most pressing logistics issue for the Asian Games.
The South Korea incident has also added to the issue of transport management at Aichi-Nagoya 2026. With Pakistan and South Korea volleyball teams finding similar problems on consecutive days, organisers will now be under pressure to prevent any further mistakes and smooth the movements of teams throughout the remainder of the Games.
