Indian shooting coach flags long commutes and bus delays at Aichi‑Nagoya Asian Games
A senior coach accompanying India’s 30-member shooting contingent at the Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games said on Thursday, September 17, 2026, that lengthy commutes and transport delays were disrupting the team’s routine in Nagoya. He reported that shooters were billeted far from the range and were facing late buses and early starts to keep to training schedules.
The coach said Indian shooters are housed around 50 km from the competition range and spread across different hotels, forcing long road journeys; the contingent includes double Olympic bronze medallist Manu Bhaker and multiple Asian Games medallist Esha Singh. He said he had arrived in Japan with certain expectations but felt the arrangements had fallen short, and noted that several thousand athletes and officials are being accommodated on the cruise ship Costa Serena, which can house up to 5,000 people.
“This [transportation] is a real problem. I didn’t see any hotels in the vicinity of the shooting range. If there were, we would have reached early. They gave us accommodation at a place which was far, so now what can we do about it?” the coach said, speaking on condition of anonymity. He added that the issue had been raised with the National Rifle Association of India and that he had not personally discussed it with its officials in recent days: “I presume the federation [NRAI] would have told them [Asian Games organisers]. I haven’t spoken to the federation about it, but we had informed the federation about this issue and this discussion had been ongoing,” he said.
He acknowledged that long travel to ranges is not unprecedented in shooting and pointed to the 2022 Hangzhou Asian Games as a previous example: “In China [2022 Hangzhou Asian Games] also, it used to take one hour to reach the range. So it has now become a part of shooting,” he said. “But having said all that, Japan being Japan, I am a bit disappointed with the arrangements. It could have been better.”
Transport problems intensified on Thursday when buses taking shooters to the range were delayed; the team assembles at one hotel for breakfast before boarding buses to the venue. “Today there was a lot of issue with the buses, perhaps because of a shortage of buses or something. The bus scheduled to depart at 8:40 a.m. left after 9 a.m., and the one scheduled for 9:40 left at 10:30 a.m.,” he said.
The daily routine has required significant discipline from the athletes, with travel sometimes taking close to two hours each way and some shooters waking as early as 5 a.m. to finish breakfast before 6:30 a.m. and begin the commute. He said there had been complaints but that the team had adapted: “They [organisers] could be trying their best, but the image we have of Japan has been blemished somewhat,” he said. “At the same time, we have to come to terms with what we have. Either we can crib or take it in our stride and say, ‘Let’s focus on what we can do because we cannot do anything about transportation’.”
On accommodation preferences, the coach said he would favour hotel rooms over life on a ship for shooters who need routine, adding: "I would not prefer a cruise. I would prefer a bed on land," and warning that athletes unfamiliar with ship life could face issues such as seasickness.
He stressed that training itself had not been disrupted and repeated the team’s hope that arrangements might improve: "From an organisation point of view, it was disappointing, but maybe tomorrow could be a different story," he said.