In Olympic village, heat tests limits of organisers' green ambitions

By Michel Rose

PARIS (Reuters) - The Paris 2024 organisers had hoped their innovative self-cooling Olympic Village apartments would make air conditioning redundant, helping them to deliver the greenest Games in history.

But with temperatures sky-rocketing in the French capital, many delegations are taking no chances.

After a downpour during the opening ceremony and a wet weekend, France is now in the middle of a heatwave that pushed the mercury in Paris into the mid-30s degrees Celsius on Tuesday.

At the Olympic Village, air conditioning units have been selling in droves, with richer countries striving to cushion their athletes from the heat while poorer nations struggle to provide the same care.

Louis Garrard, an accountant for OCOG, the organising committee for the Games, is part of the team supplying delegations with AC units at the Olympic Village. He said there had been a rush on supplies.

"At some point we ran out of them, but our stocks are back up," he told Reuters. "Asian countries especially are asking for AC, they like to keep it fresh it seems."

Organisers hoped to cut the carbon footprint of the Paris Games in half by using a water-cooling system under the athletes village, insulated walls and instructions to keep window blinds shut during the day.

That was designed to keep room temperatures below 26 degrees Celsius, and Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo had told delegations to trust the science. But given the extreme heat, organisers said they had given delegations permission to buy or rent units for their athletes.

"We believe we found a balance for the village between our long-term responsibility to create a model sustainable neighbourhood that will last after the games," said Paris 2024 spokeswoman Anne Descamps at a press conference.

"On the other hand our short-term responsibility is to give to high-performance athletes the possibility to perform, so we offered them the opportunity to rent portable AC."

France has traditionally been a country that has shunned air con, much to the chagrin of tourists from the United States, Latin America and Asia who flock to the country each summer.

But the high temperatures meant even some French athletes were turning to air conditioning.

"We have a portable cooler," said French swimmer Assia Touati. "We had no AC in the bedroom but they installed it anyway because it was getting too hot."

Some have not been that lucky.

"We have fans in the bedrooms, but that's not enough. It's too hot at night," Nihed Benchadli of the Algerian rowing team told Reuters. "And we have a little problem, we can't leave the windows open because of the mosquitoes - too many mosquitoes."

Edison Azcona Velez of the Dominican Republic's football team said he felt the heat could affect his performance in a game against Uzbekistan on Tuesday afternoon.

"We have fans in the room. It's not enough, we should get some AC. I think it is unfair, because the Olympics are where athletes need to perform, but we have to deal with it."

Others have just taken the situation in their stride.

"Previous to these last few days it was typical Irish weather with lots of rain, and it was perfect for our athletes," said Robert Smyth, a physio for the Irish Olympic team.

"To be honest the last couple of nights we've had late finishes so I just passed out. Most guys are fine, they're doing OK. Once you keep the blinds down during the day, you keep the heat out of the room."

German athletes are staying on message with the organisers' green ethos.

"Team Germany decided to go with no AC and we had no complaints so far," Meike Schmelzer, of the German handball team said.

(Reporting by Michel Rose; Editing by Hugh Lawson)