The 19th edition of the Asian Games will officially kickstart on September 23 with a grand opening ceremony at the Hangzhou Olympic Sports Center Stadium in China on Saturday, September 23. India is fielding its largest-ever contingent comprising 655 athletes across 39 sporting disciplines in this edition of the Asian Games.
Although some sporting events like women's cricket, sailing, football and volleyball among others began earlier, September 23 will mark the official beginning of the multi-nation spectacle and will get underway with the opening ceremony scheduled to start at 5:30 IST.
The Hangzhou Asian Games were originally scheduled for the year 2022 but due to the catastrophic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, they had to be pushed to 2023. The first-ever Asian Games were organised in Delhi in 1951 and the previous edition of the continental event was held in Indonesia (2018). Harmanpreet Singh, who is the captain of the Indian men's hockey team and Olympic medallist boxer Lovlina Borgohain will be India's flag bearers at the Hangzhou Asian Games.
| Sport | Timing | Event and athletes involved |
| Sailing | 8:30 AM IST ONWARDS | Men’s Skiff - 49er: KC Ganapathy and Varun Thakkar |
| Sailing | 8:30 AM IST ONWARDS | Mixed Dinghy - 470: Sudhanshu Shekhar-Preeti Kongara |
| Sailing | 8:30 AM IST ONWARDS | Boy’s Dinghy - ILCA4: Adhvait Menon |
| Sailing | 8:34 AM IST ONWARDS | Men’s Windsurfing - iQFoil-Jerome Kumar Savarimuthu |
| Sailing | 8:40 AM IST ONWARDS | Women’s Skiff - 49erFX: Harshita Tomar-Shital Verma |
| Sailing | 8:40 AM IST ONWARDS | Girl’s Dinghy - ILCA4: Neha Thakur |
| Sailing | 11:30 AM IST ONWARDS | Women’s Single Dinghy - ILCA6: Nethra Kumanan |
| Sailing | 11:30 AM IST ONWARDS | Mixed Multihull - Nacra 17: Siddeshwar Indar Doiphode and Ramya Saravanan |
| Sailing | 11:30 AM IST ONWARDS | Men’s Windsurfer - RS-X: Eabad Ali |
| Sailing | 11:34 AM IST ONWARDS | Men’s Kite - IKA Formula Kite: Chitresh Tatha |
| Sailing | 11:40 AM IST ONWARDS | Men’s Dinghy - ILCA7: Vishnu Saravanan |
| Sailing | 11:40 AM IST ONWARDS | Women’s Windsurfer - RS-X: Ishwariya Ganesh |
Related Stories
| Sport | Timing | Event |
| Table Tennis | 7:30 AM IST | Women’s Preliminary - Group F - India vs Nepal |
| Table Tennis | 9:30 AM IST | Men’s Preliminary - Group F - India vs Tajikistan |
