Paris 2024 – How they trained; where they’ll rest

By Louise Peloquin

How do athletes rev up their bodies to reach Olympic form? Let’s take a peek across the pond to the Emerald Isle.

To prepare for specific conditions, some Irish athletes turned to what is now called “sport tech” – state-of-the-art technology developed by Irish start-ups.

Many Irish athletes trained for the Paris Games on the Sports Ireland campus in Dublin where cutting-edge technology serves high-level sports. For example, paralympic archer Kerrie Leonard was able to benefit from this before her qualification for the Dubaï Games. “I was able to use a thermal chamber and experience how temperatures would be in Dubaï” she said.

A machine called “the environmental room” allowed athletes to adapt to a potential Paris 2024 heat wave. “We are not really used to these temperatures” admits Sports Ireland campus director Liam Harbison. “In order to mitigate any disadvantage to our athletes, we can regulate the conditions of this room: between 68 and 122 degrees F, between 20% and 90% humidity and up to 5000 meters of altitude.”

Artificial Intelligence analyzes performance, strategic athletic tactics and even sports injuries.

“You don’t manage soccer players like you do taekwondo masters. They don’t run the same risks” stated Diarmaid Brennan who oversaw the Irish throughout their preparation. Brennan works for Kidman Labs which also collaborates with the Irish Rugby Federation as well as England’s Premier League. “Each team is able to create its own risk model, made possible by our generative learning system.” 

“We’re going to become first in this field and that will give our Irish athletes a competitive edge” added Sports Ireland research and innovation director Benny Cullen. The platform also allows sorting available data, a time-saver for the teams who prep the athletes. Kitman Labs is far from being the only enterprise to develop this type of service.

“Ireland has generally succeeded very well in the tech sector. Our universities have trained students for data analysis and many talented young people aim at creating businesses specialized in sport.”  

More and more, technology is at the service of athletic performance. Ireland, the country of digital giants, intends to take advantage of its position to become the leader in this sector.

The Irish, along with champions from the world over, and are about to emerge from the Olympic Village and perform as they never have before. Here’s a peek at their Parisian home away from home.

Located in three towns in the Paris vicinity – Saint-Denis, Saint-Ouen-sur-Seine and l’Ile-Saint-Denis – the Olympic Village  spreads over 123.5 acres.

Chilian rower Melita Abraham expressed her amusement on Instagram when she discovered the beds, made of environmentally-friendly, heavy-duty cardboard. She was also pleased to discover the surprise gifts for every Olympian, a “très joli” cell phone offered by one of the Olympic Organization Committee sponsors, for instance.

With a total of 80 buildings, the Olympic Village includes a Polyclinic, a restaurant open 24/7, a multi-faith meditation center, a hairdresser, a barber, a tatoo artist and more. Australian tennis players Daria Saville and Ellen Perez have already tested one of the 12 laundromats on the site. Their assessment was positive.

The Village ambiance is festive according to Filipino gymnast Levi Jung-Ruivivar who enjoys using the athletic corridors painted on the grounds while the New Zealanders perform their first haka in the village gardens. (1)

     All the athletes certainly appreciate what Tony Estanguet, head of the Olympic Organizing committee, called “the biggest restaurant in the world.” It is 200 meters long, has a staff of 6,000 and will serve about 45,000 meals 24/7 during Olympic and Paralympic Games. It seats 3,500 under a vast, vaulted, lit space with geographic themes to allow athletes to orient themselves more easily. Australians Daria Saville and Ellen Perez especially enjoyed the Asian specialties while American fencer Lee Kieffer savored the Halal fare.

The Village will welcome 14,500 athletes and staff during the Olympics and 9,000  athletes and staff during the Paralympics. At the end of the two Games, the site will be converted to 2,800 lodgings, a student residence, a hotel, two schools and 120, 000 square meters of office space. In addition, 14.8 acres of parks will be open to the public.

When the Games are over, the national teams will be able to get together for festive meals. French chef Thierry Marx explains: “The banquet, above all, represents social links. It has always had the force to gather people around a table with the possibility to debate without fighting. We have experienced that in France with the ‘banquet républicain’ which orchestrated society in the past. It allowed people who had never had the floor to come discuss with their mayor or their Member of Parliament. Trades linked to gastronomy promote a sense of community. Bretons, people from Aveyron, Kabyle cafés, these are populations which gather together and invite to their table those who did not necessarily know them beforehand. They discovered one another around the table. These were moments of dialogue and appeasement when people could listen to one another. Athletes are used to post-competition banquets and that is a very good thing.”

     In his 2023 masterpiece “The Old Oak”, English director Ken Loach filmed people from different backgrounds gathered together to share a meal. Differences fade away and borders cease to exist in order to award the gold medal of humanity to all. (2)

****

1. Haka, or “war challenge” or “war cry” in Maori culture,  is a variety of ceremonial dances traditionally performed before going to war. Aggressive facial expressions are meant to scare the opponents, while cries are to lift their own morale and call on God for help to win.
2. News sources: franceinfo; RMC. Translating by Louise Peloquin.