Paris has decided not to install AC in the Olympic Village to keep the Summer Games green. Some teams are having none of it.
Paris and the rest of Europe can get scorching hot during the summer months with temperatures reaching high-30s. But Paris wants its Olympics to reduce the games’ carbon footprint and be the greenest in history.
Some teams, however, have brought and installed additional cooling systems in their athletes’ accommodations in the Olympic Village, even when organizers have promised that the inside of the 82 buildings and 7,200 rooms will be sufficiently cooled.
While the Paris Olympic committee frowned upon this move, they said that everyone was ‘free‘ to do whatever they want to do—which is a very French response.
The teams of Finland, USA, Spain, and Mexico arrived not just with their athletes but with air conditioning too. While the Paris Olympic committee frowned upon this move, they said that everyone was “free” to do whatever they want to do—which is a very French response.
Everywhere else in the village, the cooling system that they designed is similar to the system used in many of Paris’ museums, including the one that houses its most precious artworks such as Leonardo Da Vinci’s “Mona Lisa.”
Designed by French architect Dominique Perrault, the Olympic Village is spread across 52 hectares and three cities: Saint-Denis, Saint Ouen, and L’Île-Saint-Denis. It can accommodate 14,250 athletes during the Olympic Games, and 8,000 during the Paralympic Games.
How huge is the dining hall? It can serve up to 60,000 meals each day.
Six degrees lower
Paris Deputy Mayor for Sport Pierre Rabadan told Inside The Games that the temperature inside the accommodations is “six degrees lower than outside temperature because of the way we built the buildings in the village. Nevertheless, some federations and athletes have decided to use air conditioning. We are not in favor of this option in the city of Paris, but everyone is free to do what they want within this organization.”
So what happens when Paris experiences a heat wave? Reports in 2023, which said that Parisians were most at risk of dying during a European heat wave, are enough to scare athletes, whose bodies need to be in optimum condition throughout the games.
“In the event of a heat wave, we have decided that there will be air conditioning. If these six degrees below zero outside do not allow for the right conditions and a good night’s sleep, it is an option. It’s a choice we wish we didn’t have to make, but we understand,” Rabadan said.
He continued, “We’ve adopted a compact model for the Games, so we’ve reduced the distances between sports, both for athletes and visitors. We’ve made sure that there’s soft mobility, that there’s green mobility, that people can get from one point to another on foot or by bike. A lot has been done for the athletes to help us achieve this ambitious goal. I really hope this will change the way we organize sporting events.”
The Finnish team doubled down on their extra luggage. Olympic team director Leena Paavolainen told the Finnish portal website Yle, “For the Finnish team this is all settled. On these scorching hot days we’ve noticed that air conditioning is necessary. Now I can already say that it was the right decision.”
The anti-sex beds
First conceptualized and built for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, the cardboard beds and other furniture pieces were designed by the brand Airweave, a company known for sustainability. About 16,000 beds arrived at the village in May, unassembled.
Made of stiff paper, the beds are very sturdy. “We designed these cardboard beds so that they can support up to three or four people jumping, because after winning a medal, people are very happy,” Motokuni Takaoka, founder and president of Airweave, said.
The cardboard bed frames were produced in France and will be recycled also in France after the games. “We will donate the mattresses and pillows for second-life in France as well. We promise to contribute to the Paris 2024 sustainability goals through our social good bedding,” said Takaoka.
The beds were called the “anti-sex beds” by athletes in Tokyo where they were advised to avoid having sex amid the pandemic. The “intimacy ban” has been lifted in the Paris Olympics, according to Olympic Village director Laurent Michaud in an interview with Sky News.
“It is very important that the conviviality here is something big,” he said.
