Asian Games open in Nagoya with Manu Bhaker and Tajinderpal Singh Toor carrying India’s flag

The 20th Asian Games open on 19 September at Paloma Mizuho Stadium in Nagoya with a ceremony scheduled from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m. Japan time, 2:30 to 4:30 p.m. IST. Double Olympic medallist Manu Bhaker and defending Asian Games shot-put champion Tajinderpal Singh Toor will carry the Indian flag. South Korea named table tennis player Shin Yu-bin and rower Kim Dong-yong as its flag-bearers.

The Games run 16 days across Aichi Prefecture and Nagoya. Several sports, including men’s basketball, have already started. The opening show is the first time the event presents itself as a single festival. Yukihiko Tsutsumi, a Nagoya-born director who works in film, theatre and digital art, is in charge. The stated idea is “Heartbeat,” a shared pulse among Asian teams. The mascot, Honohon, takes its shape from the shachihoko, the tiger-headed fish that sits on Nagoya Castle roofs.

What India needs from the fortnight

India comes in wanting a medal table that looks better than Hangzhou 2023 and a flag moment that is clean. Bhaker is the country’s most decorated current shooter on an Olympic podium. Toor is a field-event champion whose event will be watched at home. Sony Sports 1 and 5 carry the ceremony in India. Sony Sports 3 has Hindi. Sony Sports 4 has Tamil, Telugu and Kannada. SonyLIV streams it.

The day before the opening, a flag-hoisting at Garden Pier for Yemen, North Korea, Palestine, India and Timor-Leste was delayed and then halted. Organisers cited unspecified “trouble” with a team. India’s deputy chefs de mission, including Sharath Kamal and Anjali Bhagwat, were on the ground. Kamal and Bhagwat had started toward the dais and had to walk back. The episode is small next to a 16-day programme. It is also the sort of organisational snag that visiting media will keep if the ceremony itself stutters.

Japan’s bet

Japan last hosted a summer Asian Games in Hiroshima in 1994. The torch for 2026 was lit in Tokyo and Hiroshima, then joined at Nagoya Castle and taken through 40 municipalities in Aichi. The country wants a clean home Games and a medal haul that supports a longer aim of sitting in the world’s top ten Olympic nations. That is a sports-policy sentence, not a promise about Saturday night.

Spectators at the opening had to pre-register identity and ticket details by 17 September and finish entry by 4:00 p.m. local time. The operational note on the official site is blunt: after 4 p.m., admission may be refused. That is the tone of a host that has already had to manage security for North Korea, Palestine and a region at war.

The useful test after the fireworks is narrower. Did the march of teams finish on time. Did India’s flag pass without another protocol hitch. Do the first full medal sessions on 20 September run on the published timetable. A multi-sport Games is a logistics company that also holds a party. Saturday is the party. The company has 15 days of work after that.