Cool comfort

Rachael Ng

Hong Kong athletes are enjoying the environment at the Olympic Village in Paris after portable air conditioners were installed in their rooms.

The administration took the precautionary measure of installing 45 portable air conditioners for Hong Kong athletes, as only half of the village's 5,000 rooms have air-conditioning as part of the hosts' bid to stage the "greenest" Olympics in history despite the hot summer.

The city's 35 athletes arrived in the French capital on Tuesday, describing the complex with catering and leisure facilities as "comfortable."

"At first, I was worried about the lack of air conditioners in the village. However, it has been rainy and windy in Paris recently, and the weather has become much cooler," epee fencer Cedric Ho Wai-hang said.

"Although it has been cooler in Paris as compared to the last few days, it is still better that our rooms are installed with portable air conditioners," he added.

Badminton player Lee Cheuk-yiu, who was shirtless in a social media post on a non-air-conditioned bus, said he was happy to see the air coolers.

"The environment and facilities of the village are good and spacious. I can wander around the village and feel the romantic atmosphere of France when we are out training," Lee said.

At the training session were fellow shuttlers and medal hopefuls Jordan Tang Chun-man and Tse Ying-suet, who will be the first Hong Kong athletes to make their appearance in the Games.

They will play their first group stage match against Chinese Taipei's Ye Hong-wei and Lee Chia-hsin in the mixed doubles event on Saturday at 8pm (HK time).

Olympic action kicked off in football and rugby sevens yesterday, ahead of the opening ceremony on the Seine at 2am on Saturday.

Meanwhile, Sports Illustrated is predicting that Hong Kong would win one gold and three bronze medals in Paris, two medals less than at the Tokyo Olympics three years ago.

The American magazine's staff writer Brian Cazeneuve, who has been covering the Olympics since 1995, gave his medals predictions for the 329 events in the Olympic program.

Cazeneuve expects Hong Kong star swimmer Siobhan Haughey to win the women's 100-meter freestyle event, an improvement on the silver she won in the same event in Tokyo.

But Cazeneuve does not see a medal for Haughey in the 200m freestyle, where she won silver in Tokyo, nor for fencer Edgar Cheung Ka-long, the reigning Olympic champion in the individual foil.

Bronze medals are predicted for Hong Kong in table tennis - one courtesy of the women's team, mirroring the result in Tokyo, and another in the mixed doubles event.

A third bronze could come from fencer Vivian Kong Man-wai in the women's epee event, Cazeneuve predicted.

The 5,084 medals for the Olympics and Paralympics will include fragments of the Eiffel Tower, as the medal designer, Chaumet, hopes winning athletes can bring home their beautiful memories from Paris.

The design integrates the concept of environmental protection. Craftsmen refurbished and transformed iron pieces from the Eiffel Tower into a hexagon, symbolizing French territory. They were then embedded with more than 400 tons of pressure on the medals.

Apart from the Goddess of Victory, there are also patterns of the Acropolis of Athens and the Eiffel Tower embedded at the back of the medals.

rachael.ng@singtaonewscorp.com