As the French Open suffered its first washout in 16 years on Monday, the head of the Paris 2024 Olympic bid said that the installation of a roof over Centre Court "was not crucial for France's hopes of staging the Games." Roland Garros "is one of the Paris bid's proposed venues as France looks to host the Summer Games for the first time since the capital held the 1924 Olympics." The planned extension of the site "has been put on hold" by environmental activists looking to protect the neighboring Auteuil greenhouses. Bid leader Bernard Lapasset said, "Roland Garros is already a fantastic venue for the Olympics. We could do more, but it is not crucial," he added, referring to the roof and extension projects" (REUTERS, 5/30).
THE VILLAGE: Almost 18,000 athletes and officials "will call Rio de Janeiro's Olympic village home during the mega event in August and the Paralympic Games in September." Rio 2016 organizers said that "it will be the largest number of residents ever housed at an Olympic village." Located in Barra da Tijuca, next to Olympic Park in Rio's southwest, the Olympic village "will comprise 31 high-rise buildings and 3,604 apartments." It "will also feature a shopping centre, banks, medical clinic, gymnasium, post office, beauty salon and shops selling licensed products" (IANS, 5/30).
OLYMPIC BRIEFS ...
IAAF President Sebastian Coe "dismissed claims that London 2012 may have been the dirtiest Olympic Games in history after a host of new positive drug tests came to light." The IOC said that a total of 23 positive results came from 265 retested samples "on top of over 30 previous failed tests from competitors who had been caught either during the Games or since." Coe wrote in his newspaper column, "It would be delusional to say the London Games was 'in the words of many yesterday' dirtier than Games before" (PA, 5/29).
The organizing committee of the upcoming PyeongChang Winter Olympics said Sunday that it "launched a cybersecurity panel to guard against possible hacking attacks." The committee said that "it appointed civilian experts in the cybersecurity field late last week as well as officials from the science and ICT, culture and interior ministries as well as the police so it can guard against and respond effectively to Internet-based threats" (YONHAP, 5/29).
