Asian Games 2026 Road to LA 2028

[intoronto 6,882]

Some individual sports also have qualification systems, like surfing and climbing.

[dcmdtruefan 41]

19 hours ago, MHSN said:

based on what I read on the handbooks, for the first time we have restrictions on the number of teams in team sports. this is what I found (not necessarily 100% accurate)

 

as we know in half of these sports only a few countries register to participate. probably even less than that quota number. but it will be a big deal in some sports and will deny some weaker countries to participate. 

 

OCA was playing with this idea for a while and applied it in couple of sports in Hangzhou. this is the right thing to do, still not perfect but better than nothing, nobody wants to see Afghanistan women's volleyball team or Maldives women's handball team in the Games.

 

actually having a qualification method somehow encourages average/above-average teams to participate. 

 

Water polo / 8 men + 6 women

apparently the Asian Aquatics Championship in India will act as the qualifier

 

Baseball / 8 men

top 8 from Asian ranking of 31 December 2025

 

Softball / 8 women

apparently top 8 from the 2025 Asian Cup in China

 

Basketball / 12 men + 12 women

top 12 from the FIBA Asia Ranking (date not mentioned)

 

3x3 Basketball / 16 men + 16 women

top 16 of FIBA 3x3 National Federations Ranking for U23 category (date not mentioned)

 

Cricket / 10 men + 8 women (not official)

officially everything is a TBD, but other official  sources claims those numbers, most probably based on the T20 ranking.

 

Football / TBD

 

Handball / 12 men + 8 women

no qualification method mentioned, I also couldn't find anything from the other sources, I assume the latest Asian Championship will play a role here.

 

Field Hockey / TBD

apparently everything will be decided by FIH. but the initial schedule is set for 12 teams in each gender's competition. Hockey usually had separate qualification tournaments in past.

 

Kabaddi

apparently there is no limitation on the number of teams in this sport, it seems they do not expect more than 12 teams in each gender.

 

Rugby / 12 men + 8 women

no qualification method mentioned

 

Volleyball / 16 men + 16 women

no qualification method mentioned

Thank you for your information on the events and qualification systems regarding the 2026 Asian Games. The only questions that I have so far where do you find the handbooks/technical handbooks of the 2026 Asian Games sports and where do you find information about the number of teams set for each team sports events. A simple google search from my end does not yield results that show technical handbooks of the sports in the 2026 Asian Games. What I have found so far are the qualifcation systems for Surfing and Sport Climbing. 

[MHSN 3,813]

4 hours ago, dcmdtruefan said:

Thank you for your information on the events and qualification systems regarding the 2026 Asian Games. The only questions that I have so far where do you find the handbooks/technical handbooks of the 2026 Asian Games sports and where do you find information about the number of teams set for each team sports events. A simple google search from my end does not yield results that show technical handbooks of the sports in the 2026 Asian Games. What I have found so far are the qualifcation systems for Surfing and Sport Climbing. 

yeah OCA technical handbooks are usually super secret. not easy to find online I got some of them through people I know by email, BUT I have good news, you can find all of them now in one place here. special thanks to TPE NOC.

 

the number of teams is obviously mentioned in the handbooks.

 

as for the qualification methods, some of them are in the handbooks, I also found couple more (Water Polo for example) from our national federations news channel.

[dcmdtruefan 41]

12 minutes ago, MHSN said:

yeah OCA technical handbooks are usually super secret. not easy to find online I got some of them through people I know by email, BUT I have good news, you can find all of them now in one place here. special thanks to TPE NOC.

 

the number of teams is obviously mentioned in the handbooks.

 

as for the qualification methods, some of them are in the handbooks, I also found couple more (Water Polo for example) from our national federations news channel.

Thank you for the link. I don't know what is up with the secrecy of OCA and the Asian sports federations. Does a little bit of transparecy hurt them that much? 

 

I wished I have the google search/SEO skills or the people connections that you have. Thank you again for your great work. 

 

If I have time in the next week or so, I will write about the number of 2028 Olympics events in the 2026 Asian Games and how it compares to the percentage of Olympic events hosted in previous Asian Games editions.   

Edited September 12, 2025 by dcmdtruefan

[MHSN 3,813]

there is something weird in this Asian Games program which I didn't notice earlier, in weightlifting they are not going to award medals for the total! but two set of medals for Snatch and C&J ! 

 

they tried this format for the Asian Youth Games and the outcome wasn't great. everybody wanted to lift 1kg more than the previous guy! to me that was bad and damaged the competition

 

anyway technically there will be 32 events in weightlifting, instead of 16.

[NaBUru38 219]

How about capping the total number of weight attempts? Say 6. You try 100, 105, 110, 112, 114, 116, and that's it.

[MHSN 3,813]

The OCA officially asked the organizers to add Padel and Teqball to the 2026 Asian Games 

 

https://oca.asia/media/attachments/memberships_subcommittee/5/Decisions_102nd_OCA_EB_Meeting_4_79URSwt.pdf

 

so sports can just born and get into the Asian Games right away ?  

it seems Teqball is going to be the next Jujitsu, apparently paying some money to OCA officials to include them in all OCA multi-sport events from now on  

Edited November 20, 2025 by MHSN

[JoshMartini007 2,843]

Teqball at least has some relevance in Asia (still doesn't belong), but Padel has never had a medalist from Asia at the World Championship level.

[LDOG 2,477]

Padel is indeed a weird addition. I wonder what's behind that.

[Griff88 2,021]

On 11/21/2025 at 5:49 AM, LDOG said:

Padel is indeed a weird addition. I wonder what's behind that.

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