"Green Olympics without air conditioning?"The Paris Olympics Organizing Committee eventually orders 2,500 temporary air conditioners
Jul 05, 2024
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On the 4th (Korea time), a series of local media, including France 24, reported on the retreat of the 2024 Paris Olympic Organizing Committee's 'Air Conditioner Free' policy.
According to the report, the Paris Olympic Organizing Committee ordered 2,500 temporary air conditioners to be installed at the Paris Olympic Village. The 2024 Paris Olympics, which put forward an eco-friendly Olympics, were confident that they would operate a natural cooling system using geothermal heat without air conditioning in the athletes' village to maintain a temperature at least 10 degrees below the outside temperature.The athletes' village complex in Paris' northern suburbs promoted a geothermal cooling system using cool water pumped deep underground as a showcase for eco-friendly technology, and Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo explained in an interview with Reuters earlier this year that `it was designed to maintain a pleasant temperature even at very high temperatures.' Despite the explanations of the organizing committee and the IOC, athletes from around the world were concerned by the heat wave that Paris has experienced in recent years.
As player condition management, such as lack of sleep due to tropical nights, emerged as a hot issue in each country, the U.S. declared air conditioner airlift at its own expense, and Australia, Canada, Denmark, Greece, Italy, and the U.K. also considered air conditioner airlift. Team Korea has also prepared self-rescue measures such as cooling jackets and cooling sheets filled with special refrigerants that cool at 18 degrees for conditioning of the players. Sarah Hirschland, CEO of the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Games, said `The U.S. team will install air-conditioning in all rooms in the village.' `We respect the efforts of the Paris Olympic Organizing Committee and their ideas for sustainability, but we feel that this is a very important time for the performance, consistency and predictability of the U.S. team and that air-conditioning is a very high priority and an important factor for the athletes' performance as a way to communicate with them.'
As the policies of some countries eventually led to the issue of the 'rich and poor' process, the Paris Olympic Committee, which ambitiously promoted the eco-friendly Olympics by reducing carbon emissions, eventually found a way and seemed to reflect the concerns of each country about 20 days before the opening of the event on July 26, announced that 2,500 temporary air conditioners will be installed when athletes from each country arrive at the athletes' village at the end of this month. In unison, local French media pointed out the retreat of the 'air conditioner-free' policy, which was initially impossible to realize with the title of 'The dream of an eco-friendly Olympics has disappeared'Green Olympics has melted'.
sky4us@sportschosun.com
