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PARIS: Although the Paris Olympic Village is designed to be environmentally friendly and non-air-conditioned, 2,500 temporary cooling units will be installed when athletes arrive later this month, organizers said on Tuesday (July 2).
Located in the northern suburbs of Paris, the complex was built as a showcase for environmentally friendly technology and features a geothermal cooling system that uses cold water pumped from deep underground.
But a lack of air conditioning has long plagued some national Olympic teams, with athletes concerned about lack of sleep, especially given the summer heat waves Paris has suffered in recent years.
Organizers came up with a compromise that allowed teams to order portable air conditioning units at their own expense and install them during the July 26 to August 11 Olympics.
“Our goal is to provide very specific solutions for athletes who are facing the biggest competition of their lives … their comfort and recovery requirements may be higher than in a normal summer,” Augustin Tran Van Chau, deputy director of the athletes’ village, said on Tuesday.
“Around 2,500 air conditioners have been ordered,” he told reporters during a media tour of the complex in a northern suburb of Paris.
The accommodation complex has a total of 7,000 rooms, and a geothermal cooling system ensures that the indoor temperature is at least 6 degrees Celsius lower than the outdoor temperature.
Some 40 low-rise towers will house about 10,000 Olympic athletes and 5,000 Paralympic athletes during the Paralympic Games from August 28 to September 8.
‘THIS IS NOT A GOOD THING’
Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo, head of Olympics infrastructure group Solideo, ruled out using portable air conditioners in the athletes’ village last year, while other officials stressed they were unnecessary.
In February 2023, she told French radio station France Info: “I have great respect for the comfort of athletes, but I think more about human survival.”
Several national Olympic teams have put pressure on French organizers to install air conditioning in competition rooms.
“We raised a lot of concerns early on, and they (organizers) have met those needs, like providing air conditioning for athletes in the Olympic Village,” Rocky Harris, the USOC’s head of athlete services, told AFP in February.
“These things are important for the sleep and health of athletes.”
Australian Olympic Committee chief executive Matt Carroll told Australian media last year that “we appreciate the concept of not using air conditioning because of the carbon footprint”, but he added, “this is a high-level Olympics. We don’t go on a picnic.”
The Washington Post reported last month that teams in wealthy countries such as Britain, Germany, Italy, Japan and Canada have said they will pay for air conditioning for their athletes, potentially giving them an advantage over poorer nations that don’t pay for it.
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