China’s delegation to the 2024 Summer Olympics denied on Thursday that it had brought air conditioners to Paris after a video that appeared to show Chinese staff loading hundreds of them onto a plane was leaked on Chinese social media app Douyin (TikTok).
Reports that the Chinese Communist Party had approved sending its Olympic athletes to France with their own air conditioners come after months of reported conflict between Paris Olympics organizers and various international delegations. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has pledged to stage the “greenest Games in history,” boasting about its extensive use of recycled materials, plant-based athlete menus, and the introduction of “geothermal cooling” systems in place of the standard air conditioning in the athletes’ village. Several delegations protested, and some, including from Western countries, announced plans to bring their own air conditioners, arguing that denying athletes adequate means of cooling in the blistering French heat would harm their performance and be potentially dangerous.
The Chinese team protested less vociferously than other delegations, but a video circulated on Douyin, a government-controlled version of TikTok available only in China, showed the delegation enthusiastically packing what appeared to be air conditioners onto the plane. South China Morning Post — A Hong Kong newspaper owned by the pro-government giant Alibaba — report On July 17, he asserted that “China has ignored the organizers’ efforts to reduce carbon dioxide emissions and provided the athletes with air conditioning.”
“China will join Australia, the US, the UK and Hong Kong in introducing its own climate control.” Morning Post “The organisers came up with a compromise, allowing teams to order portable air conditioning units at their own expense,” it continued.
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Zhang Xin, head of China’s Olympic delegation, denied the reports at a press conference on Thursday.
“It is not true that we brought in more than 300 air conditioners,” Zhang said. SaidAccording to Chinese state propaganda media, Global Times“The Olympic Village will provide a rental service for portable air conditioners and delegations will assess weather conditions and their air conditioning needs.”
of Times The paper interpreted Zhang’s comments as claiming that the team did not bring any “its own air conditioners,” but in the comments it reprinted, Zhang specifically denied the report that “300 air conditioners” were brought, leaving open the possibility that the Chinese team brought more or less than this number.
Zhang also denied that the Chinese team had brought their own mattresses to the Olympics, in response to reports that Paris organisers had provided uncomfortable “eco-friendly” mattresses for athletes staying in the athletes’ village.
“It is not accurate to interpret the presence of one mattress as meaning that all the players in the team brought their own mattresses,” Zhang said, suggesting that at least some of the players had brought their own mattresses.
“Each delegation is assigned accommodation with a different cooling system, and the Olympic Village provides a rental service for portable air conditioners.” Global Times Added.
Chinese state media did not mention that Olympic officials had reportedly never originally planned to install air conditioning.
“We’ve designed these buildings so that they will be comfortable to live in in summer, even after 2024. These buildings won’t need air conditioning,” Jan Krysinski, the Paris Olympics’ infrastructure director, said in March. “The facades are positioned so that they don’t get too much sunlight in summer, and they’re very well insulated.”
In its outline of “sustainable” practices at the Olympics, the IOC still I boasted. The Olympic Committee announced on Thursday that the athletes’ accommodation will “use a geothermal cooling system instead of conventional air conditioning” and have several other features that will “reduce the environmental impact by 50 percent compared to the average of the London 2012 and Rio 2016 Games, in line with the Paris Agreement on climate change.”
Englishman Daily Mail report On Wednesday, the day before the IOC released its sustainability report, the Paris organizing committee ordered “thousands of air conditioning units” for the athletes’ village, in response to widespread opposition to the lack of a traditional cooling system for the athletes.
Amid growing concerns that athletes were not getting enough rest ahead of the most important day of their sporting lives, the IOC backed down and allowed athletes to order the compact units through a “tariff,” the traditional way participants order specific products for use during the Olympics.
Several sporting organisations’ representatives warned that athletes could be put at risk if the facilities were not properly cooled.
“In our discussions with our athletes, this was a very high priority and they felt it was a critical component to their ability to perform and the predictability and consistency of what they’re used to,” said Sarah Hirshland, CEO of the United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee (USOPC).
Canada, Great Britain, Italy, Germany, Greece, Denmark, Japan and Australia have all been publicly reported as planning to bring in air conditioners. The Italian women’s volleyball team moved In hotel.
“I appreciate the concept of not using air conditioning, being mindful of the carbon footprint,” Australian Olympic Committee chief executive Matt Carroll said, “but this is a high-performance event. It’s not going to be a picnic.”
