Emperor Naruhito opens the Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games as Bhaker and Sehrawat lead India

Emperor Naruhito declared the 20th Asian Games open on Saturday, 19 September, at Nagoya City Mizuho Park Athletic Stadium, also called Paloma Mizuho Stadium. Empress Masako, Crown Prince Akishino, Princess Kiko and Olympic Council of Asia president Sheikh Joaan bin Hamad Al Thani sat in the official box. The ceremony ran about two hours under the organising theme “Harmonic Heart Beat” and closed a week of delays, confused welcome events and complaints from visiting teams about logistics in Aichi prefecture.

Manu Bhaker and Pawan Sehrawat carried the Indian flag. Bhaker, a double bronze medallist at the Paris 2024 Olympics in 10-metre air pistol and the mixed team event, had been named female flag-bearer in advance. Sehrawat was a late substitute. The Indian Olympic Association had first chosen shot-putter Tajinderpal Singh Toor, a two-time Asian Games champion. Toor did not receive his ceremonial uniform in time. Sehrawat, a member of the men’s kabaddi side that beat Iran 33-29 for gold in Hangzhou, stepped in.

The Indian numbers

India listed a contingent of just over 500 athletes across 36 sports. About 158 marched in the parade, dressed in navy. Women wore saris with silver-grey borders. Men wore matching jackets and trousers. They followed a volunteer with a heart-shaped country placard, the visual device used for every nation in the stadium.

Bhaker will contest the women’s 10-metre air pistol, the 25-metre pistol and the mixed 10-metre team. Sehrawat returns to a sport India has owned for most of its Asian Games life. Men’s kabaddi has been on the programme since 1990. India has taken gold in eight of nine editions, with the single miss a bronze in 2018. The Hangzhou final against Iran is the standard this squad will be measured against.

The wider target is Hangzhou’s medal table. India finished fourth there with 28 gold, 38 silver and 41 bronze, a total reported as 107 in some official tallies and 106 in others. Either figure was a national record. The Aichi-Nagoya programme adds events that did not exist in the same form three years ago. Teqball is on the list for the first time. Quincy D’Souza was already in a bronze-medal match in women’s singles on opening day after a semi-final loss.

Japan’s opening, and the week that preceded it

Japan wanted a clean start on home soil. What visiting officials described in the days before Saturday was a run of delayed welcome ceremonies, including India’s, and confusion over transport and accreditation. Those problems do not cancel the Games. They set the standard against which the first week of competition will be judged, especially in a country that hosted the delayed Tokyo Olympics and still sells organisational competence as a national product.

The mascot Honohon appeared with dancers on the stadium floor. The formal declaration by the Emperor is the legal and ceremonial start. Competition in several sports had already begun in the usual way of multi-sport events, which open the field before they open the show.

What to watch in the Indian fortnight

Shooting, badminton, wrestling, boxing, hockey, archery and kabaddi will decide whether India stays near the top four. The flag-bearer change is a small story with a practical lesson. Ceremonial uniforms are not a footnote when a last-mile logistics failure can rewrite the photograph that every Indian newsroom ran on Saturday night.

Toor still throws. Sehrawat still plays. Bhaker still shoots. The useful test of these Games for India is not who held the flag for twelve minutes. It is whether the 36-sport, 500-athlete list can beat a Hangzhou baseline that already stretched the federation system. The first medals in teqball and the first kabaddi pool match will say more about that than the parade did.