Paris 2024 Athletes' Village inaugurated by French President

Construction at the Paris 2024 Olympic Athletes' Village has officially ended and the keys have been handed over to the Games organising committee by the building firm in charge.

‌On Thursday (February 29), the French President went to visit the village and met some of the workers.

‌A total of 14,000 Olympians and 9,000 Paralympians will be living in the village this summer. It was designed with the input of competitors from around the world, in order to best address the athletes' needs.‌

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It contains a 24-hour medical centre, while a special Paralympic building will offer prosthetics repair and wheelchair maintenance.

There are no kitchen facilities in the rooms. The aim was to encourage socializing between the athletes by instead offering two 24-hour restaurants on-site. The beds are made of cardboard which will be recycled after the Games.

Fueling Olympic competitors with the right nutrition is crucial for the athletes and the restaurants will be able to seat more than 3,000 people at once, serving more than 40,000 meals a day. There are also entertainment areas, a sports bar (serving non-alcoholic drinks) with big screens to follow the action.‌

The designers of the village wanted a community feel and there is a post office and a supermarket on-site, plus a huge 24-hour gym and training area.

The village is located in Seine Saint Denis in the northern suburbs of Paris, one of the poorest parts of the country. The site was selected to promote urban regeneration, an important part of the Paris 2024 organising committee's legacies of the Games.

Once the Olympics have ended, the village facilities will be converted, allowing 6,000 people to move into apartments in the area, of which 25 percent will be social housing.

Schools and businesses will also be opened and the area will be served by a new subway station.

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