This photograph shows the entrance of the athletes’ village for the Paris 2024 Olympics and Paralympics game, in Saint-Denis, north of Paris, yesterday, ahead of the opening ceremony. Eight days before the opening ceremony, the first team members to arrive were from Australia and Brazil. (AFP)
Australia team members look at the map of the athletes’ village for the Paris 2024 Olympics and Paralympics game in Saint-Denis yesterday, ahead of the opening ceremony. (AFP)
The athletes’ village for the Paris Olympics and Paralympics officially opened and welcomed its first inhabitants yesterday.
The village to the north of Paris will house nearly 14,500 people, including 9,000 athletes, at its peak. Eight days before the opening ceremony, the first team members to arrive were from Australia and Brazil. “We are ready,” the deputy head of the village, Augustin Tran Van Chau, told French media.
Organisers are proud of offering a village that they say does not require air-conditioning to keep residents cool, with temperatures inside set to be at least 6 degrees Celsius (42 Fahrenheit) lower than outside in
summer. Some delegations have ordered their own air-conditioning units anyway. The village contains a host of innovations intended to make it a model of low-carbon construction.
After they have been used by Olympians and Paralympians between July 26 and September 8, the apartments will be converted into homes, with at least a third destined for public housing.
The village contains a host of innovations intended to make it a model of low-carbon construction.
Faced with concerns about the vast emissions caused by the Games – from the construction work, the air miles and catering – Paris 2024 organisers set out to make the village as environmentally friendly as possible.
With its roughly 40 different blocks, it was intended to be a “coherent model of the best things we can do at the start of the 21st century, even a bit ahead of time,” the head of the Paris Olympics infrastructure group, Nicolas Ferrand, said earlier this year.
The 2,800 apartments will generate around half of the carbon emissions compared to equivalents built with regular construction techniques when energy savings over their lifetimes are taken into account, the Paris Games infrastructure body Solideo says. After they have been used by Olympians and Paralympians between July 26 and September 8, the apartments will be converted into homes, with at least a third destined for public housing.
