Asian Games 2026 in Aichi-Nagoya: Dates, Venue Opening Times, and Why 41 and 43 Sports Are Both Right

The 20th Asian Games run **19 September to 4 October 2026**, centred on **Aichi Prefecture and Nagoya**. It is Japan's **third** time hosting and the first since **Hiroshima in 1994** — a 32-year gap.^[1][2]

★Two different sport counts circulate, and both are correct about different things. The **Japanese Olympic Committee** says **45 nations and regions** compete across **43 sports**, explicitly dated **as of 6 March 2026**. The organising committee's ticket announcement instead refers to **41 sports** — meaning the sports that are **selling tickets**. Seeing 41 and 43 side by side is not a contradiction.^[2][3]

This is the detail most guides drop. Every venue page on the official site publishes a **Venue Opening Schedule** with **three separate times per session**: **Venue Open**, **Competition Starts** and **Competition Ends**.^[1]

★Planning around "competition starts" alone means arriving as the session begins. The venue opens earlier — and **by a different margin each day**. At the **ENTRIO** handball venue the published pairs are **8:30 / 10:00 on 19 September**, **11:00 / 12:30 on 20 September**, and **13:30 / 15:00 on 22 September**. The gap is 90 minutes in each of those cases, but the clock times move by hours from day to day.^[1]

★So the practical rule is to read **the row for your date**, not the venue in general. The official table also carries the note **"Schedule above is subject to change"**, which is worth keeping rather than treating a printed time as settled.^[1]

Buying on the day is possible but narrower than it sounds. The official ticket site sells **until 90 minutes before a session is due to end**, so a purchase after the session has begun is still possible where seats remain.^[3]

★Selling at the venue itself, however, is limited to **eight venues** — not all of them. Which sports those cover, and the fact that several of those venues sit outside Aichi Prefecture, is set out in the companion page on tickets.^[3]

There is no single global stream to point to. Coverage is produced as an international feed and then distributed to **broadcasters holding rights in individual markets**, so what is available depends on where you are watching from and which broadcaster holds the rights there.^[1]

★This page does not list per-country broadcasters, because that would mean asserting rights arrangements that were not verified against each broadcaster. The reliable step is to check the schedule of the rights holder in your own market, and to expect that some coverage is shown on delay rather than live.^[1]