An Olympic village is an accommodation facility built by organizers for the Olympic Games. Its location is within an Olympic Park in the city where the Olympics will take place. The main purpose of the Olympic village is to host all participants in the Olympics, including coaches for athletes and officers. After the Munich massacre, which took place during the 1972 Olympics in Germany, the security of the Olympic villages became critical. The press and the media covering the events of the Olympics do not have access to the Olympic villages. The only people who can access the Olympic villages are the athletes, the Olympic officials, the trainers, the former Olympic athletes and the specific members of the family of athletes subjected to in-depth security checks.
Chronology
Pierre de Coubertin had the idea of creating Olympic villages. An example Olympic village came to light at the 1924 Summer Olympic Games. During the Olympics, the hosts built booths around the venue. The athletes used these booths that were convenient for them as they were near the Olympic stadium. Before the use of Olympic villages, the National Olympic Committee used to incur very high costs for renting houses for athletes, trainers and Olympic officials. Later, during the 1932 Summer Olympics, the hosts built the first Olympic Village that formed a model used for today’s Olympic villages.
Lifestyle in the Olympic villages
Hedonism is the belief that human beings exist to achieve maximum pleasure in life. The Olympic Villages show hedonistic lifestyles among athletes during the Olympics. Acts such as casual sex and abundant amounts of alcohol consumption are common. During the 2004 Olympic Games in Sochi, the host provided 6,000 athletes who attended the event with 100,000 free condoms. On the other hand, London provided 150,000 condoms during the 2012 Olympics. One of the most interesting scenarios that ever happened was during the Sydney Olympics where the 70,000 condoms provided were sold out during the games. The hosts had to add 20,000 more condoms.
Examples of Olympic villages
Los Angeles, in the United States, built the first Olympic village in the Baldwin Hills in 1932. The village only hosted male athletes. The Chapman Park Hotel, located on Wilshire Boulevard, housed the female athletes. The Baldwin Hills Olympic village consisted of firefighters, post and telegraph offices, a bank, a hospital and an amphitheater. Los Angeles, the hosts, dismantled the Olympic village immediately after the Olympic games.
Another example of an Olympic village was for the 1936 Olympics. The village consisted of one and two-story buildings in Berlin. It had a sauna, a pool, a hospital and an indoor arena. Unlike the Los Angeles Olympic Village, the Berlin Olympic village later became a barracks for almost 50.
Among all the Olympic Villages ever built, the Olympic Youth Village of Villa Soldati, in Buenos Aires, could prove to be the largest. The building will house new 1,440 apartments located in 32-storey buildings. It will occupy an area of 160,000 square meters. Event organizers are preparing to host 7,500 people
