Olympic Village

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Frequently, an Olympic Village is built within an Olympic Park or elsewhere in a host city. Olympic Villages are built to house all participating athletes, as well as officials, trainers, etc. The idea of the Olympic Village comes from Pierre de Coubertin. Up until the 1924 Summer Olympic Games, all the athletes and officials lodged in different locations around the host city, which was expensive for the National Olympic Committees. For the 1924 Summer Olympics, the organizers built cabins near the Stade Olympique de Colombes to allow the athletes to easily access the Games' venues. The Olympic Village of the 1932 Summer Olympics served as the model of today's Olympic Villages; it consisted of a group of buildings with rooms to lodge athletes, and buildings with other commodities.

[edit] List of Olympic Villages

• Los Angeles 1932: The first Olympic Village is constructed in the Baldwin Hills neighborhood of Los Angeles, California. For male athletes only, the Village consisted of several hundred buildings, including post and telegraph offices, an amphitheater, a hospital, a fire department, and a bank. Female athletes were housed at the Chapman Park Hotel on Wilshire Boulevard.^[1]
• Berlin 1936: About 145 one- and two-story apartment buildings, Haus der Nationen refectory, Hindenburghaus theatre, a hospital, an indoor arena, a swimming pool and a sauna in Wustermark about 6 mi west of Berlin. Used as barracks for over 50 years, only ruins remain. Jesse Owens's house has been restored.
• Melbourne 1956: Allocated area in Heidelberg West now called "Olympic Village" which consists of a sports centre, a primary school, shopping strip and a housing commission area where the athletes stayed.
• Rome 1960:
• Squaw Valley 1960: Four identical three-story apartment buildings, two of which still stand, modified into condominiums.
• Mexico City 1968: 904 apartments distributed in 29 multi-story buildings in the Miguel Hidalgo Olympic Village Complex.
• Munich 1972: Multiple buildings of 25, 22, 20, 19, 16, 15, and 12 stories.
• Montreal 1976: Two 23-story pyramid-shaped buildings.
• Lake Placid 1980: Adirondack Correctional Facility, Ray Brook, New York To provide safe and secure lodgings for the athletes, a newly built medium security prison was used.
• Moscow 1980: Eighteen 16-story buildings.
• Los Angeles 1984: The UCLA residents facilities, USC, and UCSB.
• Seoul 1988: Twenty-one 24-story buildings.
• Barcelona 1992: Two 40 and 44-story buildings.
• Atlanta 1996: Georgia Institute of Technology and Georgia State University
• Nagano 1998
• Sydney 2000: A new suburb, Newington, which became residential following the games.
• Salt Lake City 2002: Housing from the University of Utah and Fort Douglas (located on the campus).
• Athens 2004: A new suburb composed of four- to five-story apartments in the Parnitha area located in northeast Athens adjacent to Maroussi, the suburb where the main Olympic complex, OAKA, is located. The Athens Olympic Village also became a residential area following the games.
• Turin 2006: The Olympic Village was located in the towns of Bardonecchia, Sestriere and Turin.
• Beijing 2008: Twenty-two 6-story buildings and twenty 9-story buildings.
• Vancouver 2010: Vancouver Olympic Village and Whistler Olympic and Paralympic Village
• London 2012: London Olympic Village.

[edit] References