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PARIS 2024 OLYMPICS

Concern over lack of air-con in Paris 2024 Olympic village

The lack of air conditioning in the rooms of the athletes' village for the Paris 2024 Olympics is raising concerns from some federations and athletes, sources told AFP on Tuesday.

Published: 17 January 2023 17:09 CET
Concern over lack of air-con in Paris 2024 Olympic village
Workers operate at the site of the 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games athletes' village in Saint-Ouen, outside Paris, on August 30, 2022. (Photo by Emmanuel DUNAND / AFP)

The Olympic Village, based in Saint-Denis seven kilometres north of central Paris, will accommodate nearly 14,000 athletes and staff members during the Olympics in the French capital in July and August 2024.

The games organisers have promised the global event will be carbon neutral, with the use of materials chosen for their energy performance. After the games, the Olympic village will be converted into housing.

On Tuesday Nicolas Ferrand, head of Solideo which has been chosen to construct the Olympic buildings, said there was no problem to address.

“We are building rooms where it will be six degrees cooler than the outside temperature,” during the French summer, he assured during a press conference.

READ MORE: How the Olympics will change France’s 2024 cultural calendar

If the Olympic Games organising committee later demands air-conditioning, “there will be air-conditioning,” he added, while cautioning that the carbon footprint would be affected.

“It’s a question for society. Do we collectively accept being at six degrees less and having an excellent carbon footprint, or do we say it’s not okay, and we’re ready to downgrade the carbon footprint?” Ferrand said.

The possibility of another scorching summer, with temperatures in excess of 40C, has been taken into account, the organisers assured last year.

But the reassurances have not appeased everyone.

“Imagine several days in a row at more than 40C, in rooms at 34C. It’s still pretty crazy that these scenarios have not led to any changes,” said a high-ranking French sports official. 

The Olympic organisers have chosen to make the 2024 event “an ecological project”, said another sporting figure. 

“But in the event of a heatwave, the well-being of the athletes is not taken into account.”

Some sports federation are already looking for solutions, including finding accommodation elsewhere.

“If they continue like this, they will empty the village,” he added.

Paris-2024 organisers are considering their options, including using floor fans. 

“It’s still a work in progress,” they said.

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PARIS 2024 OLYMPICS

Paris Olympics organisers deny athletes’ beds are ‘anti-sex’

They may be made of cardboard, but the beds at the athletes' village for this year's Paris Olympics have been chosen for their environmental credentials, not to prevent competitors having sex, organisers said.

Published: 18 May 2024 13:19 CEST
Paris Olympics organisers deny athletes' beds are 'anti-sex'

The clarification came after fresh reports that the beds, manufactured by Japanese company Airweave and already used during the Tokyo 2020 Games, were to deter athletes from jumping under the covers together in the City of Love.

“We know the media has had a lot of fun with this story since Tokyo 2020, but for Paris 2024 the choice of these beds for the Olympic and Paralympic Village is primarily linked to a wider ambition to ensure minimal environmental impact and a second life for all equipment,” a spokesman for the Paris Games told AFP.

The bed bases are made from recycled cardboard, but during a demonstration in July last year Airweave founder Motokuni Takaoka jumped on one of them and stressed that they “can support several people on top”.

The Paris Games spokesman underlined that “the quality of the furniture has been rigorously tested to ensure it is robust, comfortable and appropriate for all the athletes who will use it, and who span a very broad range of body types – from gymnasts to judokas”.

The fully modular Airweave beds can be customised to accommodate long and large body sizes, with the mattresses — made out of resin fibre — available with different firmness levels.

After the Games, the bed frames will be recycled while the mattresses and pillows will be donated to schools or associations.

Athletes will sleep in single beds, two or three to a room, in the village, a newly built complex close to the main athletics stadium in a northern suburb of the capital.

A report this week in the New York Post tabloid entitled “‘Anti-sex’ beds have arrived at Paris Olympics” was reported by other media and widely circulated on social media.

Similar claims went viral before the Tokyo Olympics, sometimes fanned by athletes themselves.

To debunk them, Irish gymnast Rhys McClenaghan filmed a video of himself jumping repeatedly on a bed to demonstrate their solidity.

At those Games, during the coronavirus pandemic, organisers, however, urged athletes to “avoid unnecessary forms of physical contact”.

In March, Laurent Dalard, in charge of first aid and health services at Paris 2024, said around 200,000 condoms for men and 20,000 for women will be made available at the athletes’ village during the Games.

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