What a Utah Olympian thinks about the athlete housing at Paris Games not having air

Utahn Conner Mantz, who qualified earlier this year to run the marathon in the 2024 Summer Games in Paris, is already spending time in a sauna daily to help prepare for the scorching conditions he’s likely to encounter in August along the 26.2 miles course that links the French capital and Versailles.

But the former Brigham Young University distance runner wasn’t expecting he’d also have to deal with extreme heat in the housing providing for athletes at the Paris Games. Mantz said he was surprised to find out a few days ago that there won’t be air conditioners at the recently completed complex in a Paris suburb due to environmental concerns.

“I’m not looking forward to it. I know how terrible it is to sleep,” the 27-year-old who grew up in Smithfield and now lives in Provo said, recalling serving a mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the west African nation of Ghana. “I didn’t have air conditioning in that weather. I didn’t live in great conditions for two years.”

Mantz, who finished first at the Olympic Marathon Trials held in Orlando, Florida, in February, followed by fellow former BYU distance runner Clayton Young, said his training likely won’t change since his coach is focusing on readying him for the daytime summer heat.

“I’m hitting the sauna every day regardless because it’s going to be hot in Paris,” Mantz said. “It’s a factor in training, that’s for sure. I’m doing the best I can to make sure I’m trained to be 100% ready.”

But sleep is also critical to his performance in a race that’s set to start at 8 a.m. on Aug. 10, the second to last day of the Olympics.

“The night before, I’m usually so jittery it doesn’t make a huge difference,” Mantz said. “I want good sleep before a race. Will it happen? Probably not. I do worry about those nights heading into the marathon. You don’t just want good sleep you want great sleep, not just the night before, but for weeks heading up to it.”

Paris temperatures have soared above 100 degrees in past summers, but Olympic athletes are going to have to do without air conditioners because French organizers are promising “an inspiring example, socially and environmentally,” built around a pledge to keep greenhouse gas emissions to less than half of what previous games produced.

“I want the Paris Games to be exemplary from an environmental point of view,” Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo has said, telling Reuters news agency recently, “We have to trust the scientists when they help us to construct buildings in a sober way that allows us to make do without air conditioning.”

What also must be trusted, the socialist mayor who won reelection in 2020 with the backing of the Greens party said, “is what scientists are telling us about the fact that we are on the brink of a precipice. Everyone, including the athletes, must be aware of this.”

The Athletes Village will rely on a geothermal system that taps into underground water sources to reduce the temperatures in the massive complex that will be converted to offices and apartments post-games. Some of the reported 15,600 athletes and sports officials who’ll call the Athletes Village home during the Olympics are already talking about setting up their own air conditioners.

Mantz, who graduated from BYU in 2022 with a degree in mechanical engineering, said he wasn’t familiar with the geothermal system developed for the Athletes Village, but he’s thought about finding “some industrial level fans just to keep the air flowing because the convection makes you feel like you’re cooler.”

He’d planned to arrive at his first Olympics in time for the Opening Ceremonies on July 26, when Team USA and other athletes from around the world will sail down the Seine River on barges during the parade of nations, but now that his coach has alerted him to the lack of air conditioning, Mantz is not so sure.

“I’m going to just wait until I get closer to the event to actually really go through my plan,” Mantz said, adding that while he expects to stay at the Athletes Village, that could change if it’s too hot. “If I get there and it’s 80 degrees at night, I definitely will be a little worried about it.”