Mayor of the Olympic village in Sochi Zhurova: IOC sets living conditions for Olympic Games 2024
The living conditions of athletes during the 2024 Olympic Games (OG) in Paris are largely determined by the International Olympic Committee (IOC), says the mayor of the Mountain Olympic Village in Sochi in 2014, State Duma deputy Svetlana Zhurova. In a conversation with Lenta.ru, she told what criteria the organizers set.
The IOC sets strict standards
“In 2014, I became the mayor of the Olympic village. My area of responsibility was the Olympic villages. It was important for me to combine the best experience and the standards that the IOC has. The IOC has fairly spartan standards, and the host city can further improve these standards a little. In the future, the Olympic village will have different purposes. It’s a win-win when it becomes a good hotel, apartment or condo that will sell. If these are temporary buildings, then no one is worried at all,” she explained.
Svetlana Zhurova shared her experience of living in various Olympic villages during her sports career. According to her, competition participants did not always have good living conditions, since local authorities did not plan to further develop this infrastructure.
About furniture – it’s like who saves money. We have [в Сочи] there was a condition that there should be very comfortable beds, we endured it. And we had comfortable rooms, because now these are all hotels of different levels. That’s why we built it efficiently and well, because we knew that we would have to use it for years, so there was no point in doing it poorly
Athletes can improve their living conditions
The deputy noted that Olympic participants spend a lot of time in the Olympic village, since they do not have competitions and training every day. She also added that there is a practice when representatives of some athletes buy necessary things and equipment for their rooms, depending on their needs.
“The delegation is engaged in additional improvement of their accommodation. What journalists or athletes will now see two months before the Olympics is not a fact that this will not change in two weeks. A lot depends on the head of the delegation,” she concluded.
In the Olympic village in Paris, athletes will have an apartment with an area of 12 square meters for two, two rooms and one bathroom, writes Sports.ru. There are no equipped kitchens inside, no TVs or air conditioning, despite forecasts for a hot summer. The latter became a fundamental decision of the authorities. They added additional insulation to the facades and installed a water cooling system.
In May it was also reported that “anti-sex” beds would be waiting for athletes. The sleeping places will be made of cardboard and designed for one person. The organizers link this decision with concern for the environment. Similar beds were presented at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021. Then this was explained by anti-Covid restrictions.
Source: Lenta
Kingston is an accomplished author and journalist, known for his in-depth and engaging writing on sports. He currently works as a writer at 247 News Agency, where he has established himself as a respected voice in the sports industry.
