(Paris) Up to 35°C at some Olympic sites: the heat wave continues throughout France on Tuesday and reaches Paris, where the temperature will weigh on the athletes and spectators of the Olympic Games, while the Paris region is placed on alert for the risk of thunderstorms at the end of the afternoon.
The national forecaster Météo-France has extended from 41 to 45 the list of departments, in a large southern half of the country, placed under alert for the risk of heatwave and is predicting “high temperatures” of 35 to 36 °C “over a large part of the country”. “Strong storms” accompanied by “intense precipitation” could hit Paris and its region from 6 p.m. (12 p.m. Eastern time), the meteorological service also indicated.
Now on the front line of the heat front, the Olympic sites will be subjected to temperatures of up to 35°C on Tuesday, “and the night from Tuesday to Wednesday will be very hot, with minimum temperatures around 22°C”, according to Météo-France, which anticipates the continuation of this first heatwave of the summer in France until Wednesday.
Some events organised in the afternoon will be particularly exposed to the heat (women’s rugby 7s semi-finals, field hockey qualifiers, beach volleyball and 3×3 basketball preliminary rounds, BMX freestyle qualifiers, etc.).
The athletes “are used to it,” stressed the Minister Delegate for Health Frédéric Valletoux on Monday on the BFMTV channel, urging spectators to stay well hydrated.
But the risk of heavy rainfall, the main cause of the deterioration in the quality of the water in the Seine, could compromise the holding of the men’s triathlon event, initially scheduled for Tuesday and already postponed to Wednesday due to the level of pollution in the river still being too high.
“Extreme” conditions
Referring to the football matches in Bordeaux (southwest, with highs of 38°C on Tuesday) and the sailing events in Marseille (south-east, with 35°C expected), the Minister of Health assured that the Cojo was evaluating “with each federation the opportunity to maintain or postpone” the events.
For the time being, the organizers have not planned any postponements due to the heatwave.
In Paris, at Place de La Concorde, where a blazing sun had already beaten down on Monday on the asphalt of the skatepark, below the Luxor obelisk, skaters often used ice packs to cool their heads or faces between races.
For spectators, the Île-de-France region announced on Monday the activation of the heatwave plan, with distribution of water and hats.
The Paris region transport authority, for its part, deployed unprecedented measures on Monday to keep travelers refreshed.
It plans to distribute 2.5 million water cartons in 74 stations and stations. Water fountains are also installed in 94 points of the network, “including 90% of the stations serving the Olympic sites”.
The Olympic Village, which hosts more than 10,000 athletes, was designed without air conditioning, for ecological reasons.
But, cautiously, the delegations ordered a total of nearly 2,500 air conditioners (out of a total of 7,000 rooms), indicated the deputy director of the village Augustin Tran Van Chau at the beginning of July.
“Heat waves are an emblematic manifestation of our climate change; they are increasingly intense, frequent, early and long-lasting,” stressed Matthieu Sorel, climatologist at Météo-France, on Saturday.
In France, before 1989, there was “an average of one heat wave every five years”, whereas “since 2000 they have occurred at an annual frequency”. They “will be twice as numerous within thirty years”, the specialist warned.