Paris Olympic Athletes’ Village, Eco-Friendly Despite ‘Heat Wave Concerns’… I Visited It In Person (Paris Olympics D-3) :: Sympathetic Media Newsis ::

The organizing committee will hold a media tour on the 23rd, local time.

Cardboard beds appear again after Tokyo Games

Contrary to concerns about heatwaves, the heat in the athletes’ village is not felt that much

(Paris = Newsis) Reporter Jinyeop Kim = The athletes’ village where representative athletes from each country will stay during the 2024 Paris Olympics has been revealed to the media ahead of the opening of the games.

The Paris Olympic Organizing Committee held a ‘Athletes’ Village Media Day’ on the 23rd (local time) for Olympic reporters who had applied in advance. The Korea Sports Council introduced the Korean athletes’ accommodations.

The Paris Olympic Village spanned three cities north of Paris: Saint-Denis, Saint-Ouen and Lille-Saint-Denis.

According to the organizing committee, 14,250 athletes will live here during the Olympics. They have also created an environment where athletes can focus solely on the competition, including operating the first-ever daycare center.

Each country’s national team hung a large national flag on the exterior wall of the apartment building where they stayed in the athletes’ village, making it immediately clear where the athletes from that country were staying.

The Korean team also wore various banners representing Korea, including the Taegeukgi (Korean national flag) and “TEAM KOREA” and “ALLEZ LA COREE (Let’s go! Republic of Korea).”

The Korean team stays in building B6, which is a 5-minute walk from the entrance. A total of 89 rooms from the 3rd to the 5th floor are used by the Korean team. The first floor has a medical room for the Korean team, but it is also used by other national teams, including Venezuela.

Each floor has not only accommodations for the players, but also a separate lounge where the players can rest and recover physically and mentally.

The lounge is stocked with snacks that the athletes can easily consume. A Korean Sports Council official explained, “We bought them locally because the cost of purchasing them in Paris was cheaper than the transportation cost incurred by bringing them from Korea.”

Instant rice, ramen, etc. were prepared so that Korean players could feel like they were in Korea, and they were written in foreign languages ​​as well as Korean.

The ‘cardboard bed’ that was used as part of environmentally friendly measures during the 2020 Tokyo Olympics has reappeared at this year’s Games.

The bed frame is designed with cardboard material, and the cardboard bed with a mattress on top of it is said to have been improved to withstand more load. It was known to be able to withstand 200 kg during the Tokyo Games, but this time it is said to be able to withstand up to 250 kg.

The Paris Olympic Village, where the athletes live, does not even have indoor air conditioning. The city and the organizing committee have made plans to use bio-materials such as wood from the construction process to reduce carbon emissions, and to use clean energy such as geothermal and solar power as a source of electricity.

In addition, the layout and size of the buildings were varied to promote natural cooling by promoting air circulation between buildings. This is the plan to keep the internal temperature about 6 degrees Celsius lower than the outside temperature even during heat waves.

When the organizing committee announced the details, there were concerns that the athletes might be exposed to extreme heat, but when I visited the site, it was difficult to feel the extreme heat.

Even considering that the sun rose after rain in downtown Paris on the day of the media tour, the weather was generally cool, perhaps due to the influence of the Seine River flowing through the athletes’ village.

The Korean Sports Council purchased additional cooling equipment for this environment. Each room was equipped with a cooling fan, and 26 portable air conditioners were also installed to be used when requested by the athletes.

A Korean Sports Council official explained, “However, the athletes’ village was not as hot as expected, so there were no instances of using portable air conditioners,” adding, “The airflow system that the organizing committee emphasized as natural cooling is also working well, and I heard that some athletes even brought blankets because it was cold at night.”

The Paris Olympic Village, which seemed largely untouched by the elements of concern, was full of energy and liveliness from athletes representing each country.

The Australian team played loud music, came out onto the balcony, and danced happily while making eye contact with passersby, while the Spanish and Italian teams maintained their condition by riding bicycles.

As it was a media day, it was not difficult to see players from around the world being interviewed with bright expressions by media from each country that visited the site.

The atmosphere was closer to joy and excitement than tension, with the opening just three days away (local time).

However, the North Korean team located in the innermost part of the athletes’ village could not be seen.

The only things hanging in the North Korean team’s accommodations were five artificial flags.

Meanwhile, according to the organizing committee, the athletes’ village will be used as new housing, student dormitories, hotels, parks, and shops after the Paralympics.

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