Inside the Olympic Village: Cardboard beds, no curtains and inedible food
Coco Gauff is high-profile. The 20-year-old tennis player is the U.S. Open champion, one of Team USA’s flag-bearers, and one of the most marketable athletes at this year’s Olympic Games.
When she speaks, people listen. So when Gauff uploaded a video to TikTok from inside the Olympic Village the morning after the Games’ opening ceremony, it was no surprise it went viral.
The footage shows a frantic scene from the night before: a cramped apartment, filled with athletes getting ready in every corner, clothes strewn over the floor, pop-up hair stations, and panic on the faces of competitors racing to be on time for their boat trip down the Seine.
The video is soundtracked by a sound effect entitled “feminine rage” and the caption reads, “10 girls, two bathrooms. #olympicvillage.”
@cocogauff
This is the reality of the 2024 Paris Olympics: it is the world’s biggest sporting event, but most of its star attractions — the athletes themselves — effectively live in communal accommodation more befitting college students. In the comments of her TikTok post, Gauff confirmed she was the only female American tennis player still in the Olympic Village.
“All the tennis girls moved to a hotel except me, so now just five girls, two bathrooms,” she wrote. “I have the room alone, room-mates are very chill.”
The first version of the Olympic Village appeared 100 years ago in Paris, with the athletes of 1924 housed in wooden huts and asked to pay fixed rates. Though conditions are undoubtedly better now, athletes still have their complaints.
This is what the Olympic Village is really like — from the secret treats to the infamous cardboard beds.
The Olympic Village is seven kilometres (4.3 miles) north of central Paris — spread between the suburbs of Saint-Denis, L’Ile-Saint-Denis, and Saint-Ouen-sur-Seine. For just over two weeks, it will accommodate roughly 14,000 competitors before housing 8,000 during the Paralympic Games this month.
These are elite athletes — and they understandably receive their perks.
Bakeries distributing Parisian baguettes are spread over the 54-hectare (around 540,000 square metres) site, which was previously a mix of industrial units and derelict buildings.
Costa Coffee also offers athletes free drinks, and enables them to upload pictures of their loved ones to the coffee machines. A few seconds later, the image is recreated in latte art on the drink’s surface. Judging by their social media output, many competitors have chosen pets not people.
The village coffee bar (Richard Pelham/Getty Images)
There are on-site grocery and laundry facilities — 18,000 pounds (8,200kg) of washing will be processed each day — while a multi-faith centre sits at the village’s southern end.
“We’re here for anyone who might need a listening ear,” Tenpa Rabgye, a Buddhist monk who usually lives in a monastery in southern France, told Time Magazine. “Maybe we can help someone get through a tough time when they’re feeling pressure.”
Access is limited. Only athletes or coaches are allowed in, plus a limited number of family members. There are subdivisions to what athletes can access, even beyond the gates.
Every nation’s team have their own home block (or, for the smaller countries, their own area in a shared block), with each tailored to their specification.
Perhaps the secret behind the Irish team, who could beat their best medal haul at an Olympics, are the slushie machines in their lobby. The Dutch have bespoke orange bikes.
Netherlands’ prime minister Dick Schoof pays a visit to the Olympic Village, complete with orange bikes (Arturo Holmes/POOL/AFP via Getty Images)
Australia took three tons of tuna, 10,000 muesli bars and 2,400 meat pies, as well as three baristas from an award-winning roastery. Downstairs, the Tucker Box Bistro offers performance nutrition.
One of Paris’ aims is to be the most sustainable Olympic Games ever delivered — a tough gig, given the low-key early editions, never mind their ancient precursors — and the development of the village is a lynchpin.
“This village was thought up as a neighbourhood that is going to have a life afterwards,” said Georgina Grenon, the 2024 Paris Olympics director of sustainability. “Paris 2024 is renting it for a few months.”
After the Paralympics finish on September 8, the village will be transformed into office space for 6,000 workers and apartments for another 6,000 inhabitants, including social housing. Several initiatives are testing sustainable technology — Grenon describes it as a “test lab” — with one pavement made from seashells.
If they work, the shells will absorb rain, with the stored water then evaporating on hot days to cool those who walk on it.
But some of the lived experiences of the sustainable initiatives have also frustrated athletes, who are being asked to endure conditions that are more utilitarian than utopian. Knowing that they will be transformed after the games, the rooms are only lightly furnished, while some athletes were surprised to discover they were expected to bring their own toilet roll.
“It probably wasn’t the time I thought I was capable of,” said Australian swimmer Ariarne Titmus on Sunday, who won gold in the 400m freestyle. “But living in the Olympic Village makes it hard to perform. It’s not made for high performance, so it’s about who can keep it together in the mind.”
An artist’s impression of how the Olympic Village will be turned into office space and housing (Richard Pelham/Getty Images)
That said, Titmus has also complained about Team Australia’s policy of asking athletes to leave the village within 48 hours of their final event to minimise the effect of partying room-mates on remaining competitors.
Among the environmental initiatives, the most controversial has been the lack of air-conditioning. Rather than conventional cooling units, each apartment has a water-based system within the walls, capable of cooling the room by up to 10C (50F). That sounds fine but athletes are not allowed to use its full range and have complained about only having the ability to lower the temperature by 2C.
Under pressure, organisers announced that teams could buy a conventional air-con system at their own expense — but some federations cannot afford expensive units and there have been supply issues, leading to accusations of a “two-tier” Olympics.
“There is no air-conditioning, just this fan and it is not enough,” Romanian table tennis player Bernadette Szocs told The Guardian. “You can feel it is too hot in the room. We are sleeping with the door open at night. The rooms are small and we are two people.”
Some of the rooms also lack curtains, affecting athletes’ sleep before competition, with American heptathlete Chari Hawkins demonstrating how she had used a giant towel to stop people looking in while she was changing.
@_charihawkins How to change in my room wothout curtains at the Olympic village.
Her team-mate, open-water swimmer Mariah Denigan, had an even better solution.
“No blackout curtains in the Olympic Village — not a problem,” she said, before revealing the tin foil she had attached to the windows. “Who said athletes weren’t smart?”
The beds are possibly the most high-profile source of discussion. They are made from cardboard frames for sustainability, although the rumour that they are meant to dissuade sex and fall apart at vigorous movements is untrue.
Videos have shown that the mattress — made from recycled materials — is thin but it can be flipped over to choose between a harder and a softer side.
The beds for athletes in the village have been divisive (Maja Hitij/Getty Images)
“The bed sucks,” wrote American gymnastic star Simone Biles on TikTok. “But we are getting mattress toppers so hopefully it’ll get better.”
Gauff borrowed a mattress topper from the archery team, but Biles’ gymnastics team-mate Frederick Richard had another solution — he brought his own mattress with him across the Atlantic.
“I actually really like the bed,” Great Britain’s bronze medal-winning diver Yasmin Harper told The Athletic. “I enjoy a hard bed, so it’s great for me. And the village is really nice. It’s been set up really well — it’s almost like something from (computer game) Sims, it’s almost animated.”
Harper was less complimentary about another aspect of life in the village.
“The food has been a little bit more questionable — the quantity has been a bit lacking,” she said. “I feel with food, you either need texture or taste, and if there’s neither, it’s a bit more of a problem.”
There is a central cafeteria in the heart of the village, open for 24 hours and serving 40,000 meals every day. But athletes have consistently criticised the quality of the mass catering, claiming it is not suitable for high performance. Team GB’s chiefs suggested it was also dangerous.
“At the beginning of every Games, there are usually two or three issues — the big one this time is the food in the village, which is not adequate,” said Andy Anson, the Team GB chief executive. “There are not enough of certain foods: eggs, chicken, certain carbohydrates, and then there is the quality of the food, with raw meat being served to athletes.”
IOC president Thomas Bach tries food in the Olympic Village (David Goldman/POOL/AFP via Getty Images)
British athletes have instead gone to eat in the country’s external performance centre in Clichy, a 30-minute drive away — Team GB have hired an extra chef to meet demand.
Olympic Village caterers Sodexo Live told French newspaper L’Equipe that it took the athletes’ complaints seriously and was aiming to adapt its supplies of certain food types to match demands.
The food is not all bad, however — there is one particular chocolate muffin that has gone viral among athletes on social media for its quality. Norwegian swimmer Henrik Christiansen is especially obsessed.
@henrikchristians1 When bae is looking like a snack #fyp #olympics #paris2024 #olympictiktok #olympicvillage #muffins @Olympics @paris2024
Other problems in the village are not necessarily the organisers’ fault. For example, even within this elite world, hierarchies and fandoms exist. Competitors have been trying to spot the Games’ biggest stars, such as Biles, Rafael Nadal, French swimmer Leon Marchand and American track star Noah Lyles, the reigning 100m world champion.
“I’ve become kind of popular in the village, and unfortunately, that has come with its own set of challenges in finding my own space, whether that’s eating or training in the gym,” Lyles said.
“Some athletes like to leave the village and stay in hotels, but I like to enjoy the whole Olympic experience — I don’t want to leave. I’m not even the most popular person in the village, so I know I’m not the only one who’s had to deal with situations like this.
“I’ve now been finding myself eating at very random times in the back of the cafeteria, just to have my space with my girlfriend (Jamaican sprinter Junelle Bromfield) as we’re trying to enjoy a meal. I’m just being vocal and being honest with myself.”
Noah Lyles, right, has been a popular figure in the Olympic Village (Ashley Landis – Pool/Getty Images)
Not everyone has stayed. As well as Gauff’s U.S. tennis team-mates, South Korea’s swimmers moved closer to the pool to reduce their commute.
“It usually takes about 40 to 45 minutes from the village to the arena, but it took us more than an hour and a half,” Hwang Sun-woo told The Korea Times before he compared the bus to a sauna. “The windows were taped probably because they are worried about terrorist attacks. But something has to be done.”
The most high-profile absentees are the NBA stars who make up the U.S. basketball team — they have not stayed in the Olympic Village since 1992, citing concerns over security and comfort.
“I don’t think we had a choice,” said Kevin Durant. “I haven’t gotten into any cardboard beds since I’ve been doing this whole thing.”
Village life, it would seem, is not for everyone.
(Top photos: Instagram/@cocogauff; Getty Images)
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