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

PARIS : 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