"You Expect Us to Play Without Even Touching a Ball? We Paid Out of Pocket to Rent a Venue"... Baseball and Volleyball National Teams Fume at Organizers' Bungling [Nagoya AG]

[Financial News]  The incompetence of the organizing committee for the 2026 Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games has finally gone too far. After the sweltering container accommodations and the farcical mass walkout during the opening ceremony, the organizers have now failed to properly provide the national teams with the training venues essential to their performance. South Korea's baseball and women's volleyball teams are preparing for crucial medal-contending matches under absurd administrative conditions imposed by the host country.
The Ryu Ji-hyun-led baseball team, set to face Taiwan tomorrow (21st) in a do-or-die opening game in Group B, checked its condition yesterday (19th) at an indoor training facility hastily secured by the Korea Baseball Organization (KBO). A KBO official fumed, "The organizing committee failed to inform us of the official training time and venue even by the afternoon of the 18th. We had no choice but to find a training venue ourselves and pay out of pocket in case something went wrong." With the team's first game determining the fate of its bid for a fifth consecutive Asian Games title, it has not even received the most basic support from the host country.

The situation facing the women's volleyball team, which will play Kazakhstan in a crucial quarterfinal today (20th), is even more dismal. Led by head coach Sang-Hyun Cha, the team had to make do with training in the cramped fitness center of its hotel on the 19th, the day before the match, without even setting foot on a volleyball court.
Coach Cha said, "The organizing committee unilaterally informed us that official training could not be held on the 19th. Ball drills are essential to maintain our feel for actual competition, so this is very disappointing. But I believe everyone is under the same conditions, and we will do our best in the circumstances we've been given." The fitness center was too cramped even for the entire squad, forcing the team to split into two groups and barely manage individual conditioning—a truly farcical situation.
This is far from the first time South Korea's national teams have suffered because of the Nagoya organizing committee's poor management. The men's basketball team, which secured a place in the final after defeating Iran for the first time in 12 years, also endured the horrific conditions at the "container athlete village" before escaping to a downtown hotel on the 16th following an emergency measure by the Korean Sport & Olympic Committee (KSOC). On the 17th, a major disaster unfolded when a breakdown in the arrivals system left delegations from South Korea and other countries sleeping on airport floors for hours.
After the athlete village, transportation and pre-event ceremonies, even the training infrastructure directly tied to performance has now collapsed. The Nagoya Asian Games, which failed to provide even the bare minimum for athletes who had spent four years preparing through sweat and sacrifice—three years in the case of these Games—appears unlikely to escape the stigma of being the "worst ever."
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