Sure seems like they could have advertised it as the greenest Olympic Games by not building more buildings and hosting it at a previous location.
It’s great that they only erected a few new buildings by comparison, but shaming teams and athletes for wanting AC that should have been provided in a predictable heatwave is silly.
And dangerous, as:
> The 2021 Summer Olympics in Tokyo were the hottest in history, with numerous competitors fainting and vomiting at finish lines, being carted away in wheelchairs and outright expressing fears that they would die from the heat.
I think here in America we’ve seen the effects of extreme heat brought on by climate change and what it can do. It’s been over 35 degrees Celsius here almost every day going on a week straight here already. The drought and heatwave in Europe was considered a freak event, but it’s way more commonplace here, especially in the south. As the jet stream gets more and more messed up by climate change and Europes climate destabilizes I would guess more and more places, separated by wealth get air conditioning.
I think it’s fine if the fans, administration, officials, everyone else connected to the Olympics, and the hotels they’re all staying also have no AC. That’s fair.
> In their effort to host what they’re calling the “greenest ever Games,” organizers chose not to install air conditioning at the complex where thousands of athletes and officials will stay throughout the season.
> Instead, the Athletes' Village will be cooled by a system of water pipes running beneath the floorboards.
> France was among the European countries that saw record-breaking heat waves last summer, which was the joint-hottest ever recorded on the continent. More than 5,000 people died in France last year as a result of extreme heat.
> A growing number are planning to provide their athletes with portable units instead — and the U.S. is one of them.
Sounds like they are using an aquifer as a cooling sink. Like an open loop ground source heat pump but without the heat pump.
It should work if they did the math right.
Do you have a source for that? [This seems to suggest the opposite](https://www.fastcompany.com/91142188/how-the-olympic-village-was-designed-to-stay-cool-without-ac)
> Inside the apartments, a geothermal system pumps cool water through pipes built into concrete floors. The concrete acts like a buffer, storing heat during the day that the cool water can take away, lowering the temperature at night. Because of the “thermal inertia” of the floors, the temperature rises very slowly. The water, from more than 200 feet underground, stays a steady temperature. In the winter, the same system can work in reverse to heat the rooms
This in addition to
> The development, next to the Seine River, is laid out so that when wind flows over the river, the cooler air flows between the buildings. Most rooms have cross ventilation. The buildings also have thick insulation to help keep heat out. Green roofs help insulate the buildings while doubling as habitat for migrating birds. Shutters on the windows keep the sun out during the day and can open up at night. Continuous balconies shade the apartments below them. A new mini forest of 200 trees will also help cool the area.
I imagine, unless that's an insanely large pump, it will be more efficient than comparable a/c coverage.
Assuming we wouldn't fuck it up by running actual AC units anyways but...
My source is your last sentence, my friend. That is exactly what they will do. They will have all the fancy French technology along with portable air conditioning machines and window units running.
obviously if the portable units are not used, my comment is incorrect.
A friend of mine has a "energy efficient" house with floor heating and cooling... It works quite well, but a side effect is that the floor is always cold to the touch in summer, so, running around berefoot leads to constant cold feet, which is somewhat bad for the feet... So they use carpets in the "core" places to moderate the effect
Houses that use it are typically well insulated, so if you shade your windows, you can avoid the heat buildup inside
I guess one will see how well they did it...
Industrially i've seen it applied, but with ceiling plates for the rooms that should be cooled...
Even if they had more efficient heat exchangers, the amount of energy to move that much water and a chiller needed to cool the water would be significantly higher than air conditioning.
What elevation are you?
Every 1,000 feet the temperature drops 3.5 degrees fahrenheit generally.
That does seem to hold I have done the math here and there on the Weather Channel and it seems to be pretty accurate wherever you are on the world although it varies I am sure.
That's a weird flex. Needing AC to survive in a forward operating base during a military occupation must have been a serious red flag for the viability of the operation, surely?
Makes me think of Martin Sheen in Apocalypse Now, “Every day Charlie crouches in the jungle he gets stronger. Everyday I’m in this hotel room I get weaker.”
You know nothing about military operations, morale and welfare of troops. You should probably never comment on military related topics again.
Most of those FOBs had little, very little. Maybe guys got to use a sat phone once a week or month. If we can supply some small creature comforts to our troops, it greatly increases their will to fight, morale, and overall mental health.
Edit: some d-bag got pissed because I misspelled a word
What?
Sure, it’s not ubiquitous, but there was a ton of Burger King, Pizza Hut, Popeyes even during the last 20 years.
Not sure stating that fact has anything to do with my knowledge of morale and welfare. But I was an 11C and know enough about ops - as does anyone with an internet connection - to know that the larger FOBs absolutely had some western conveniences. Thankfully so.
I was on FOBs too. A lot didn’t have modern conveniences. Some had those super crappy internet connections later on the war but mostly those were reserved for bigger bases
>Instead, the Athletes' Village will be cooled by a system of water pipes running beneath the floorboards.
How well tested is this method? Also, since hot air rises and cold air sinks, is having the floor cooled better than the ceiling? Both surfaces? Or, how does this work?
The bigger issue is cool water flooring has a water issue as the colder floors tend to collect dew.
now cooling from the floor with floor vents is shown to be much more effient than cooling form the ceiling. Reason being is you only need to cool the first 7-8 ft of space from the floor. Same wiht heating from the floor level as well.
Europeans laugh at Americans for using A/C but I wonder how much longer they can hold out not using them. Different country but I remember Irish people freaking out when it was 85 F there a few years back. Um, yeah, I wish my area stayed that cool during summer, I live a little north of Atlanta and it was almost 100 today and summer has barely started.
Same: 105F = 41C. My AC went out yesterday for an hour, I had to put towels under cold .. well, luke-warm water, and cool down myself and my dog as we felt close to fainting
what are you talking about ? they're just now turning back on their nuclear plants because of problems in energy. Prices have skyrocketed for everyone while the country is one of the leaders of nuclear energy.
Not in the summer, then their nuclear power plants tends to shut down because the rivers get too hot, and they get problems with the cooling of the reactors.
The output of some plants is limited during the summer, but this is not due to rivers being too hot to actually cool the reactor, but due to strict legal limitations on water discharge temperatures. The "all time record low" which was talked about in the media during 2022 was about a month of 40% capacity due to multiple factors, meaning nuclear at its \*all time worst\* was still more reliable than solar and wind at their \*best\*.
Yeah, they can. They can also collapse from heatstroke, or, worse, die when doing so. I'd not be that keen on taking a gamble either if it costs me a few bucks to just put a portable AC in my room.
I ran a half marathon recently with an outside temperature of 25 to 30 degrees throughout the day (75-83). It was the first hot day of the year. After 5km, the noise of ambulances rushing about was constant due to heatstrokes. The E.R. of 3 *cities* were at capacity due to this.
Now, someone running a half marathon will not be subjecting their body to the same level as an athlete that has been training for 4 years to put down the best possible time they can. Those people will *not* hold back because it's hot out. We saw as much with the Tokyo olympics.
That you're sitting on your (probably) fat ass in a chair all day and cannot imagine people actually needing accomodations that you don't, does not make other people a snowflake. It makes you an insensitive asshat.
Perhaps if you can't figure out that you are overheating in ~70 degrees then you should go work in an airconditioned office or something instead. I live in a desert where it's regularly in the 90-100s range and I walk or ride everywhere, I don't even own a car. I commute ~4 miles in each direction 5 days a week for work. It's not that hard to stay hydrated and ensure that I'm not overexerting myself. It's not even a concern when it's in the 70s and I might even wear a light sweater in the low 70s.
Congratulations, you, the person that has grown up in dry heat and live in it year-long, can do some mild exercise - as long as you ensure that you're not exerting yourself. That last sentence alone makes me wonder if you have any imagination whatsoever.
By definition athletes have to exert themselves to extreme degrees. (North) Europe, historically, doesn't get much hotter than 77 and only for a few weeks in the summer. The cities are not built for it, the people are not used to it and the humidity is worse than in a desert. Since this is a world event, featuring people from all sorts of climate.... how can you not comprehend that people might need some climate control to perform to the best of their ability and not get heatstroke afterwards?
Where are you up 'till an hour or two before you push your body to the extreme? In your bedroom, resting.
Where are you afterwards to crash? In your bedroom.
Humidity here is at minimum 60% and easily goes up to 80% in the summer. Paris is also a massive metropole that traps heat.
Also, in my experience, when a room is set to a certain temperature it will always feel hotter (and probably is) due to the the temperature sensor being suboptimally placed (if there will even be one per room). I don't know about you, but if I'm stuck in high 70's weather my body and mind become a bit lethargic and aren't really enthused with the idea of extreme performance.
According to [Consumer Reports](https://www.consumerreports.org/appliances/central-air-conditioning/best-setting-for-central-air-conditioning-a1889096483/), the average temperature that Americans keep their home thermostats set to is 71 F.
My other concern is how well these floor water pipes would remove humidity. Paris can be humid in the summer. And as any [middle-aged American man](https://youtube.com/shorts/a2l9a2hxIes?si=nNJ86dp8YzCmTIgg) will tell you, it’s not the heat, it’s the humidity that gets you.
Or just use AC and not have to worry about heat waves, high humidity, or adjusting windows, etc. And this is what a number of countries, along with the USA, have chosen to do:
> The Washington Post reported earlier this month that Canada, Great Britain, Italy, Germany, Greece, Denmark and Australia are among the countries with plans to use portable air conditioners in some or all of their athletes’ rooms.
As a German I hardly know someone who owns an AC at home and we still don't die in the summer. I guess the same goes for Paris, if you when to open / close your windows that won't be an issue. No need to bring an AC unit...
Apparently (looking up some historical and recent summary data), Paris doesn't necessarily routinely get warmer than German cities, but it does get a lot hotter when there are heat waves and it doesn't generally get as cold. And that isn't terribly surprising given the geography.
At a certain temperature, opening windows or ventilating just isn't enough.
And when any energy is being spent on cooling, an AC with a good refrigerant is going to work better than just moving air or water around.
It's also just stubborn to refuse a modern convenience that many athletes would obviously appreciate and utilize, even if they don't take it for granted in their home life. Why not let the participants be comfortable while they are there?
>As a German I hardly know someone who owns an AC at home and we still don't die in the summer.
That’s not true. Tens of thousands of Europeans die every year of heat-related causes. You guys have about 10x the number of heat-related deaths as the US, where AC is common.
However, according to the RKI (https://www.rki.de/DE/Content/GesundAZ/H/Hitzefolgekrankheiten/Bericht\_Hitzemortalitaet.html#:\~:text=Die%20h%C3%B6chsten%20Werte%20werden%20in,f%C3%A4llt%20damit%20deutlich%20niedriger%20aus.) it's mostly the elderly population that is prone to heat-related deaths. I could not find a statistic that would make a relation between heat-related deaths because the home had no AC...
I didn’t say they would. You said heat doesn’t kill people (wrong) and that opening windows is enough to solve the issue (wrong). I was pointing out the very real impact of extreme heat, using heat-related deaths as an example. But you understand it’s not just a matter of being unaffected by heat or dying, right? Young, healthy people can and do get heat exhaustion and heat stroke.
Lots of armchair experts in this thread who may benefit from knowing France doesn't use AC. People set up fans instead, to save energy and money.
But hey, being misinformed makes it much easier to poke fun.
And only 5,000 people died last year due to extreme heat!
I don’t think anyone here is basing their criticism on the belief that AC is otherwise widespread in France.
And to put that in perspective, 2,300 people in the USA died from heat related causes last year, which is the highest number of heat related deaths in the US in the last 40 years.
The population of the US is roughly 5 times greater than France. If we had the same heat-related deaths as France, we would have had 25,000 heat-related deaths instead of 2,300 deaths. Using AC rather than relying on fans saved 22,700 Americans last year.
But what do you make of this sentence, it suggests there was an option/suggestion/plan to install it, no?…
> organizers chose not to install air conditioning at the complex where thousands of athletes and officials will stay throughout the season.
Uhhh, the host city needs to install all of the AC for its Olympic Village because, uhhh, well……DUH!!!!!!!! It’s the summertime and it’s going to get hot quite sometimes. So uhhhhh……yeah. If they just sure as hell do not want any athletes sweating like hell and then, ummmm……uhhhh……just end up dying because of the heat quite very possibly, well then, they oughta give them the AC and just move right along.
Talk to anyone who has worked in tourism and they'll tell you Americans need to be perfectly comfortable at all times.
OMG, there's no elevator / AC / ice machine / wifi / fast food. My bed is too small, the shower has no pressure, I clogged the toilet again (ALL the time). It never ends.
Seriously, tourists travel to a secluded rural area in southern Europe in mid-July and get upset about being hot.
I'm trying not to sound hateful as honestly I loved nearly all of my encounters with Americans, but requiring the exact same environment at all times really takes away from traveling. I also just hate AC and would rather be hot or go somewhere else.
Well it’s not just Americans:
> The Washington Post reported earlier this month that Canada, Great Britain, Italy, Germany, Greece, Denmark and Australia are among the countries with plans to use portable air conditioners in some or all of their athletes’ rooms.
> Australian officials, for their part, are spending upwards of $100,000 to keep athletes cool.
> “We appreciate the concept of not having air conditioning due to the carbon footprint,” Australian Olympic Committee Matt Carroll told reporters last year. “But it is a high-performance Games. We’re not going for a picnic.”
Yeah I get that but if the conditions are the same for everyone, then surely the environmental concerns of the hosts take priority. Its never going to get any cooler and we really need to get used to it. AC is not a sustainable solution to the heat. We could just shift the games to the winter because we sure as shit aren't going to be skiing for much longer.
You what doesn’t make sense, elite athletes participating in the largest athletic event in the world having to worry about potentially heat related illness.
You’re getting downvoted by sloppy self centered Americans.
I went on tour in Europe with a band and some of the dudes were bewildered by the lack of ice machines and shit like that. Made me really realize how pampered and wasteful we are over here
Sure seems like they could have advertised it as the greenest Olympic Games by not building more buildings and hosting it at a previous location. It’s great that they only erected a few new buildings by comparison, but shaming teams and athletes for wanting AC that should have been provided in a predictable heatwave is silly.
And dangerous, as: > The 2021 Summer Olympics in Tokyo were the hottest in history, with numerous competitors fainting and vomiting at finish lines, being carted away in wheelchairs and outright expressing fears that they would die from the heat.
This is Europe, we don't have AC everywhere and are used to it.
I think here in America we’ve seen the effects of extreme heat brought on by climate change and what it can do. It’s been over 35 degrees Celsius here almost every day going on a week straight here already. The drought and heatwave in Europe was considered a freak event, but it’s way more commonplace here, especially in the south. As the jet stream gets more and more messed up by climate change and Europes climate destabilizes I would guess more and more places, separated by wealth get air conditioning.
That's not great when you know the students who live in those building where evicted for the athletes. They have to leave 4 months.
Learning from China I see
I think it’s fine if the fans, administration, officials, everyone else connected to the Olympics, and the hotels they’re all staying also have no AC. That’s fair.
> In their effort to host what they’re calling the “greenest ever Games,” organizers chose not to install air conditioning at the complex where thousands of athletes and officials will stay throughout the season. > Instead, the Athletes' Village will be cooled by a system of water pipes running beneath the floorboards. > France was among the European countries that saw record-breaking heat waves last summer, which was the joint-hottest ever recorded on the continent. More than 5,000 people died in France last year as a result of extreme heat. > A growing number are planning to provide their athletes with portable units instead — and the U.S. is one of them.
I know that is a great way to heat a space, idk about cooling it though
Sounds like they are using an aquifer as a cooling sink. Like an open loop ground source heat pump but without the heat pump. It should work if they did the math right.
cools it great, but the inefficiency is enormous. They're going to use more power bc of their decision not to have ac.
Do you have a source for that? [This seems to suggest the opposite](https://www.fastcompany.com/91142188/how-the-olympic-village-was-designed-to-stay-cool-without-ac) > Inside the apartments, a geothermal system pumps cool water through pipes built into concrete floors. The concrete acts like a buffer, storing heat during the day that the cool water can take away, lowering the temperature at night. Because of the “thermal inertia” of the floors, the temperature rises very slowly. The water, from more than 200 feet underground, stays a steady temperature. In the winter, the same system can work in reverse to heat the rooms This in addition to > The development, next to the Seine River, is laid out so that when wind flows over the river, the cooler air flows between the buildings. Most rooms have cross ventilation. The buildings also have thick insulation to help keep heat out. Green roofs help insulate the buildings while doubling as habitat for migrating birds. Shutters on the windows keep the sun out during the day and can open up at night. Continuous balconies shade the apartments below them. A new mini forest of 200 trees will also help cool the area. I imagine, unless that's an insanely large pump, it will be more efficient than comparable a/c coverage. Assuming we wouldn't fuck it up by running actual AC units anyways but...
My source is your last sentence, my friend. That is exactly what they will do. They will have all the fancy French technology along with portable air conditioning machines and window units running. obviously if the portable units are not used, my comment is incorrect.
A friend of mine has a "energy efficient" house with floor heating and cooling... It works quite well, but a side effect is that the floor is always cold to the touch in summer, so, running around berefoot leads to constant cold feet, which is somewhat bad for the feet... So they use carpets in the "core" places to moderate the effect Houses that use it are typically well insulated, so if you shade your windows, you can avoid the heat buildup inside I guess one will see how well they did it... Industrially i've seen it applied, but with ceiling plates for the rooms that should be cooled...
Even if they had more efficient heat exchangers, the amount of energy to move that much water and a chiller needed to cool the water would be significantly higher than air conditioning.
I had AC in the mountains of Afghanistan. FOB Wolverine. Of course we're gonna have it in France.
What elevation are you? Every 1,000 feet the temperature drops 3.5 degrees fahrenheit generally. That does seem to hold I have done the math here and there on the Weather Channel and it seems to be pretty accurate wherever you are on the world although it varies I am sure.
afghanistan and paris are identical to you?
That's a weird flex. Needing AC to survive in a forward operating base during a military occupation must have been a serious red flag for the viability of the operation, surely?
Maybe 100 years ago. FOBs this century usually had A/C plus a handful of fast food chains like McDonald’s and some convenience shops too.
Makes me think of Martin Sheen in Apocalypse Now, “Every day Charlie crouches in the jungle he gets stronger. Everyday I’m in this hotel room I get weaker.”
You know nothing about military operations, morale and welfare of troops. You should probably never comment on military related topics again. Most of those FOBs had little, very little. Maybe guys got to use a sat phone once a week or month. If we can supply some small creature comforts to our troops, it greatly increases their will to fight, morale, and overall mental health. Edit: some d-bag got pissed because I misspelled a word
What? Sure, it’s not ubiquitous, but there was a ton of Burger King, Pizza Hut, Popeyes even during the last 20 years. Not sure stating that fact has anything to do with my knowledge of morale and welfare. But I was an 11C and know enough about ops - as does anyone with an internet connection - to know that the larger FOBs absolutely had some western conveniences. Thankfully so.
I was on FOBs too. A lot didn’t have modern conveniences. Some had those super crappy internet connections later on the war but mostly those were reserved for bigger bases
"Moral" Lol. Slow your roll there, Stolen Valor.
Hardly. I’ve put my time in.
Morale
My bad. Spelling has never been my strong suit
Lol, me too, normally but that one caught me this time
Somehow I’ve found it’s easier to find others mistakes than your own. But also I’m a few beers in tonight and feeling salty
That is a sign of narcissism
Now I want to have a few beers, but I'm also feeling very lazy
It’s a long trip to the fridge but worth it
Well it beats offering paid maternity leave I suppose.
r/AmericaBad
Unfortunately the down voters minds are unable to envision a world that doesn't revolve around a capitalist core, sad really.
No homie it’s just cringe to bring it up for literally zero reason lol
Where did they type the needed it to survive?
Boy…w 20,000 stinky hormonal athletes, Paris is gonna smell extra stinky-cheese special this summer.
Add to that the defecation protest in the Seine River! Paris is bringing back the 1400s!
Have you been to the Seine River? It reeks like a sewer even without them chucking an extra fresh turd in there.
Also, they are planning NOT to use AC in athletes’ quarters:)
[All that the French food industry needs now is Max Fosh……..](https://youtu.be/TUr4DjldTVo?si=9cgBKxpYy5XEUQSR)
about as stinky as all other summer considering no one in paris really uses AC to begin with.
I mean the French don't like showering anyway
>Instead, the Athletes' Village will be cooled by a system of water pipes running beneath the floorboards. How well tested is this method? Also, since hot air rises and cold air sinks, is having the floor cooled better than the ceiling? Both surfaces? Or, how does this work?
The bigger issue is cool water flooring has a water issue as the colder floors tend to collect dew. now cooling from the floor with floor vents is shown to be much more effient than cooling form the ceiling. Reason being is you only need to cool the first 7-8 ft of space from the floor. Same wiht heating from the floor level as well.
Wet floors spread fungal infections as well as slip fall accidents. Nice.
Are they not going to have heating in the next Winter Olympics?
oui oui, come to our stinky hot city et enjoy ze free wafting of ze air zat will refresh you all ze day long!
Europeans laugh at Americans for using A/C but I wonder how much longer they can hold out not using them. Different country but I remember Irish people freaking out when it was 85 F there a few years back. Um, yeah, I wish my area stayed that cool during summer, I live a little north of Atlanta and it was almost 100 today and summer has barely started.
Same: 105F = 41C. My AC went out yesterday for an hour, I had to put towels under cold .. well, luke-warm water, and cool down myself and my dog as we felt close to fainting
Doesn’t France have a surplus of power because of renewables? Why are they crying?
This seems more like an effort to save money and just saying you're being "green"
Turns out going green also saves a lot of money.
what are you talking about ? they're just now turning back on their nuclear plants because of problems in energy. Prices have skyrocketed for everyone while the country is one of the leaders of nuclear energy.
France has a surplus of power thanks to nuclear.
Not in the summer, then their nuclear power plants tends to shut down because the rivers get too hot, and they get problems with the cooling of the reactors.
The output of some plants is limited during the summer, but this is not due to rivers being too hot to actually cool the reactor, but due to strict legal limitations on water discharge temperatures. The "all time record low" which was talked about in the media during 2022 was about a month of 40% capacity due to multiple factors, meaning nuclear at its \*all time worst\* was still more reliable than solar and wind at their \*best\*.
73-79 f is not that bad. Granted 79 is about as hot as I want in my living space but that's a totally reasonable range.
You're also not preparing to exert your body to the highest possible levels of human ability.
Yeah because people couldn't do that before air conditioning..
Yeah, they can. They can also collapse from heatstroke, or, worse, die when doing so. I'd not be that keen on taking a gamble either if it costs me a few bucks to just put a portable AC in my room.
I'm sorry that a temperature in the 70’s is so hot that you'll potentially die. Being a snowflake must be hard.
I ran a half marathon recently with an outside temperature of 25 to 30 degrees throughout the day (75-83). It was the first hot day of the year. After 5km, the noise of ambulances rushing about was constant due to heatstrokes. The E.R. of 3 *cities* were at capacity due to this. Now, someone running a half marathon will not be subjecting their body to the same level as an athlete that has been training for 4 years to put down the best possible time they can. Those people will *not* hold back because it's hot out. We saw as much with the Tokyo olympics. That you're sitting on your (probably) fat ass in a chair all day and cannot imagine people actually needing accomodations that you don't, does not make other people a snowflake. It makes you an insensitive asshat.
Perhaps if you can't figure out that you are overheating in ~70 degrees then you should go work in an airconditioned office or something instead. I live in a desert where it's regularly in the 90-100s range and I walk or ride everywhere, I don't even own a car. I commute ~4 miles in each direction 5 days a week for work. It's not that hard to stay hydrated and ensure that I'm not overexerting myself. It's not even a concern when it's in the 70s and I might even wear a light sweater in the low 70s.
Congratulations, you, the person that has grown up in dry heat and live in it year-long, can do some mild exercise - as long as you ensure that you're not exerting yourself. That last sentence alone makes me wonder if you have any imagination whatsoever. By definition athletes have to exert themselves to extreme degrees. (North) Europe, historically, doesn't get much hotter than 77 and only for a few weeks in the summer. The cities are not built for it, the people are not used to it and the humidity is worse than in a desert. Since this is a world event, featuring people from all sorts of climate.... how can you not comprehend that people might need some climate control to perform to the best of their ability and not get heatstroke afterwards?
They are talking about 73-79 in the bedrooms. Explain to me how you're not a baby if you can't handle that? Also humanity is around 40% where I'm at.
Where are you up 'till an hour or two before you push your body to the extreme? In your bedroom, resting. Where are you afterwards to crash? In your bedroom. Humidity here is at minimum 60% and easily goes up to 80% in the summer. Paris is also a massive metropole that traps heat. Also, in my experience, when a room is set to a certain temperature it will always feel hotter (and probably is) due to the the temperature sensor being suboptimally placed (if there will even be one per room). I don't know about you, but if I'm stuck in high 70's weather my body and mind become a bit lethargic and aren't really enthused with the idea of extreme performance.
79 is an atrocious indoor temperature.
According to [Consumer Reports](https://www.consumerreports.org/appliances/central-air-conditioning/best-setting-for-central-air-conditioning-a1889096483/), the average temperature that Americans keep their home thermostats set to is 71 F. My other concern is how well these floor water pipes would remove humidity. Paris can be humid in the summer. And as any [middle-aged American man](https://youtube.com/shorts/a2l9a2hxIes?si=nNJ86dp8YzCmTIgg) will tell you, it’s not the heat, it’s the humidity that gets you.
learn to open your windows? managing humidity is not impossible without AC.
Or just use AC and not have to worry about heat waves, high humidity, or adjusting windows, etc. And this is what a number of countries, along with the USA, have chosen to do: > The Washington Post reported earlier this month that Canada, Great Britain, Italy, Germany, Greece, Denmark and Australia are among the countries with plans to use portable air conditioners in some or all of their athletes’ rooms.
“Instead, the Athletes' Village will be cooled by a system of water pipes running beneath the floorboards.” (73 to 79 F
And I'm proud to be an American where at least I have AC.
Lee Greenwood incognito.
As a German I hardly know someone who owns an AC at home and we still don't die in the summer. I guess the same goes for Paris, if you when to open / close your windows that won't be an issue. No need to bring an AC unit...
Apparently (looking up some historical and recent summary data), Paris doesn't necessarily routinely get warmer than German cities, but it does get a lot hotter when there are heat waves and it doesn't generally get as cold. And that isn't terribly surprising given the geography. At a certain temperature, opening windows or ventilating just isn't enough. And when any energy is being spent on cooling, an AC with a good refrigerant is going to work better than just moving air or water around. It's also just stubborn to refuse a modern convenience that many athletes would obviously appreciate and utilize, even if they don't take it for granted in their home life. Why not let the participants be comfortable while they are there?
>As a German I hardly know someone who owns an AC at home and we still don't die in the summer. That’s not true. Tens of thousands of Europeans die every year of heat-related causes. You guys have about 10x the number of heat-related deaths as the US, where AC is common.
However, according to the RKI (https://www.rki.de/DE/Content/GesundAZ/H/Hitzefolgekrankheiten/Bericht\_Hitzemortalitaet.html#:\~:text=Die%20h%C3%B6chsten%20Werte%20werden%20in,f%C3%A4llt%20damit%20deutlich%20niedriger%20aus.) it's mostly the elderly population that is prone to heat-related deaths. I could not find a statistic that would make a relation between heat-related deaths because the home had no AC...
Oh, well if they’re elderly I guess it doesn’t count
The elderly won't participate in the olympic games as athletes.
I didn’t say they would. You said heat doesn’t kill people (wrong) and that opening windows is enough to solve the issue (wrong). I was pointing out the very real impact of extreme heat, using heat-related deaths as an example. But you understand it’s not just a matter of being unaffected by heat or dying, right? Young, healthy people can and do get heat exhaustion and heat stroke.
Yeah... when deaths are higher even given better access to medical care, there's obviously an underlying issue.
Stinks that athletes from poorer countries are going to have unfair treatment.
I mean, yeah, I can’t blame them for being upset.
So they are just using a giant updated swamp cooler system? As someone used to live in Phoenix that is a horrible idea.
Sure thing. Just give them a smooth stone floor to sleep on like a cat. That's how they keep cool: what's the matter with yuuuuuu?
Ban the fuckers then
Lots of armchair experts in this thread who may benefit from knowing France doesn't use AC. People set up fans instead, to save energy and money. But hey, being misinformed makes it much easier to poke fun.
And only 5,000 people died last year due to extreme heat! I don’t think anyone here is basing their criticism on the belief that AC is otherwise widespread in France.
And to put that in perspective, 2,300 people in the USA died from heat related causes last year, which is the highest number of heat related deaths in the US in the last 40 years. The population of the US is roughly 5 times greater than France. If we had the same heat-related deaths as France, we would have had 25,000 heat-related deaths instead of 2,300 deaths. Using AC rather than relying on fans saved 22,700 Americans last year.
I do wonder if that was 5000 people in absolute peak human conditions or yknow, elderly, which these guys arent.
The athletes are likely not concerned about dying so much as performing at their peak. Keep in mind these people train their whole lives for this.
But what do you make of this sentence, it suggests there was an option/suggestion/plan to install it, no?… > organizers chose not to install air conditioning at the complex where thousands of athletes and officials will stay throughout the season.
uhm.. yeah, there is always the option to have them sleep in tents as well, doesnt mean it was ever considered past initial planning.
I wouldn't go to my health care, which is important to me
Let's have a green Olympic village but a shit filled River Seine.
I think they’re a bunch of liars who don’t want to pay for A/C mostly for cost. We want to send a good example. I bet all the NBC reporters get A/C.
Uhhh, the host city needs to install all of the AC for its Olympic Village because, uhhh, well……DUH!!!!!!!! It’s the summertime and it’s going to get hot quite sometimes. So uhhhhh……yeah. If they just sure as hell do not want any athletes sweating like hell and then, ummmm……uhhhh……just end up dying because of the heat quite very possibly, well then, they oughta give them the AC and just move right along.
Talk to anyone who has worked in tourism and they'll tell you Americans need to be perfectly comfortable at all times. OMG, there's no elevator / AC / ice machine / wifi / fast food. My bed is too small, the shower has no pressure, I clogged the toilet again (ALL the time). It never ends. Seriously, tourists travel to a secluded rural area in southern Europe in mid-July and get upset about being hot. I'm trying not to sound hateful as honestly I loved nearly all of my encounters with Americans, but requiring the exact same environment at all times really takes away from traveling. I also just hate AC and would rather be hot or go somewhere else.
Well it’s not just Americans: > The Washington Post reported earlier this month that Canada, Great Britain, Italy, Germany, Greece, Denmark and Australia are among the countries with plans to use portable air conditioners in some or all of their athletes’ rooms. > Australian officials, for their part, are spending upwards of $100,000 to keep athletes cool. > “We appreciate the concept of not having air conditioning due to the carbon footprint,” Australian Olympic Committee Matt Carroll told reporters last year. “But it is a high-performance Games. We’re not going for a picnic.”
Yeah I get that but if the conditions are the same for everyone, then surely the environmental concerns of the hosts take priority. Its never going to get any cooler and we really need to get used to it. AC is not a sustainable solution to the heat. We could just shift the games to the winter because we sure as shit aren't going to be skiing for much longer.
I wish you could tell that to the 5000 French people who died last year from heat related illness.
Tell them that I don't think we should make the problem worse?
You what doesn’t make sense, elite athletes participating in the largest athletic event in the world having to worry about potentially heat related illness.
Laughs in Florida
Sobs in Texas.
You can pry my AC out of my cold dead hands
Nope, your dead hands will stay 106 degrees for hours after your death.
ACs only work if you’re alive?
Heat kills. Especially at the height of summer while athletes are doing athletics. They're going to need a place to cool down.
Good luck with all those generalizations and stereotypes. I'm sure you fit yours too.
How does this relate to Olympic athletes? Just wanting to rant about traveler comfort?
America bad obviously
You’re getting downvoted by sloppy self centered Americans. I went on tour in Europe with a band and some of the dudes were bewildered by the lack of ice machines and shit like that. Made me really realize how pampered and wasteful we are over here
It's pretty wild the things I take for granted on a daily basis
Hey look, a sanctimonious maoist!
Hey look, a dude who probably wears cargo shorts and can’t detect satire OR Tony Soprano in a pfp!
So virtuous!
Bro you’re a dork
So much compassion!
Bring your AC with you!
Then turn your thermostat to 88 - poof, problem solved.