Last week I was treated to a sneak peak in the athlete’s village. Today the athlete’s themselves will start moving into their Games time home, but when I visited it was still eerily empty.
The iconic Olympic rings in the Athlete’s Village
The press release tells me ‘The London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Village is the most compact in recent games history’ but I was blown away by the size and scale. Covering 36 hectares it is built to house 16,000 athletes and team officials during the Olympics and a further 6,200 during the Paralympics.
With shiny new apartment blocks and landscaped green open spaces, the East Village – as it will become known once the Games are over – has everything an athlete could want… and some they probably don’t.
Victory Park – the ‘green lung’ of the Athlete’s Village
There is a bank, a spa, internet lounges, a private cinema, a computer gaming area, a music studio, pool tables, state of the art gyms, a polyclinic offering physio and sports medicine, a multi-faith centre, a dentist and even a pub garden!
A typical athlete’s apartment
Here are some fun facts and figures about the village:
- There are 2,818 apartments with over 250,000 sq.m of space
- Most athletes will share a bedroom, but there won’t be more than two people in a room
- 16,000 beds have been assembled – some with special extendable bases to cater for taller athletes
- 22,000 pillows, 1,200 blankets and 28,000 branded duvet covers have been supplied by Next
My favourite area in the village – The Globe – a chill out zone for the athlete’s
Hope you like the photos, and that you can get a sense of what the village is like. Don’t forget to follow us on Instagram to keep up to date with all our Olympic photos.
