Team Canada purchases AC units for athletes at the Paris Olympics. Why? – National

Preparations for the Paris Olympics are in full swing and some countries, including Canada, are making sure their athletes stay cool during the two-week summer sporting event.

Team Canada is one of several visiting delegations that will add air conditioning systems because the rooms in the Olympic Village where the athletes will stay do not have them.

“In line with our commitment to providing optimal health and performance conditions for Team Canada, and informed by our conversations with athletes, the Canadian Olympic Committee, with its sporting partners and national sporting organizations, has implemented several heat mitigation strategies,” the COC told Global News in an emailed statement.

“One of these measures is highly efficient, low-emission air conditioning units in some sports rooms, purchased from the organising committee to complement the measures put in place for Paris 2024.”

After the Games end, the AC units will be donated locally to people in need, the COC said.

The Athletes Village will house more than 15,000 Olympians and sports officials during the Paris Games, which take place from July 26 to August 11.

Paris organizers have pledged to make this year’s Olympics the greenest ever, with the aim of halving CO2 emissions compared to the average of the London 2012 and Rio 2016 Games.

As part of that effort, rooms in the Athletes Village will not be air-conditioned.

Instead, there will be fans, blinds and a system of cooling pipes under the floors.

However, the main dining room will be air-conditioned and if it gets really hot, additional temporary solutions will be made available if necessary, particularly for the south-facing Village apartments, Paris organizers told Global News.

“During the Games, delegations requiring additional cooling solutions for their athletes will have the option of renting temporary, mobile, lower-emission cooling units on a rate card basis,” the Paris 2024 Olympic Games Organizing Committee (OCOG) said in an email.

“We believe we have struck a good balance between our primary commitment to athlete well-being and our responsibility as organizers of major events in the face of climate change.

“Overall, we are confident that only a minority will opt for additional solutions.”

Temperatures are expected to rise again in the European summer, after setting records in 2023. While it is still too early for an exact forecast for July, national weather agency Meteo-France said warmer than normal conditions are most likely goods.

The average maximum temperature in Paris on August 1 is 26 degrees Celsius.

A recent report by British researchers highlighted the heat risks during the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris, warning that “the threat of a devastating heat wave is very real”.

The analysis found that the average temperature in Paris has risen by 3.1 degrees since 1924, the year of the last Olympic Games in France.

The report also noted that during the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, temperatures soared above 34 degrees Celsius and humidity reached nearly 70 percent, leading to athletes vomiting and fainting at the finish line.

According to the Paris 2024 OCOG, features such as geothermal cooling, powerful blinds and natural air ventilation were tested under summer conditions, showing that the indoor temperature is at least six degrees lower than the outdoor temperature.

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Canada isn’t the only visiting country planning to use portable ACs in Paris.

The Washington Post reported earlier this month that the United States, Great Britain, Germany, Australia, Italy, Greece and Denmark have similar plans.

Joseph Baker, Tannenbaum research chair in sports science, data modeling and sports analytics at the University of Toronto, said he was not surprised that Canada, like other countries, put these additional cooling measures in place as a “backup plan.”

“I think, given the weather we’ve seen in Europe in recent summers, this makes sense because if all goes well, they won’t be needed,” he said in an interview with Global News.

Teams will want to control as many variables as possible during the Olympics, including the sleep environment, so athletes can perform well, Baker said.

“If they’re coming from parts of Canada where you don’t have these kinds of extreme heat, they want the same kind of sleeping environment that they’re used to,” he said.

“And so that’s what the air conditioning units will provide, the ability to choose the environment that gives them the best quality of sleep, because on top of all the other things they have to deal with in the run-up to a big Games, they don’t want to have to worry don’t have to worry about the sleeping environment, because that is of course very important for performance.”

— with files from Reuters and The Associated Press.

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