Team USA Olympic athletes are able to mimic home at their own training facility in France

EAUBONNE, France -- United States discus thrower Valarie Allman practiced her form on a quiet field. Weightlifter Mary Theisen-Lappen took instruction from her coach inside a training room with other American weightlifters. Breaker Jeffrey Louis, who goes by B-boy name Bboy Jeffro, moved his head and shoulders to a hip-hop beat in an adjacent room.

There was a spot for all of them at the ATHLETICA high-performance training center, which is serving as the training base for U.S. athletes competing at the 2024 Paris Olympics and Paralympics. It’s in a small suburb north of Paris called Eaubonne and is separate from the Olympic village in Saint-Denis, where most athletes at the 2024 Games are living and training.

There are training spots all throughout the complex, including a full indoor and outdoor track, basketball courts, and swimming pools. Outside of sports, the goal is to create a home away from home for American athletes. They have a full sports medicine clinic and recovery center, a residential area with about 100 sleeping rooms, and mental health experts and sports psychologists are available whenever athletes need them.

“The ideal scenario for an athlete is that they don’t have to travel far for the services that they need," said Finbarr Kirwan, the chief of Olympic sport for the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee. "So here, what we have is a multidisciplinary approach. All of the services are here.”

Preparations in partnership with ATHLETICA at the complex started in 2018, Kirwan said. He said the organization toured numerous potential facilities for the American athletes, but “none compared to this.”

About 300 athletes from 16 Olympic sports including artistic swimming, breaking, fencing, gymnastics and track and field are using the center. After that, around 150 athletes from 12 sports will use it for the Paralympics.

Kirwand said upwards of 200 athletes come through the facility every day for food, training, conditioning or recovery.

One of them is artistic swimmer Megumi Field, who said she and her teammates couldn't believe U.S. athletes had the huge facility all to themselves.

“It’s crazy," Megumi said. "We were actually here two months ago ... to kind of test it out before we actually got here, and we were like, ‘What? USA has their own little community to live in, to have food, and every sport has their own little venue to train in before the Olympics?’

“I was just so mind blown that the U.S. is able to provide this environment.”

Artistic swimming starts Aug. 5. While waiting, Field has been enjoying all the benefits of the complex, from the familiar food options and extensive training staff to others.

“There’s AC here, which you can’t find anywhere else,” Field said with a laugh. “So that’s been amazing. Just all the Team USA banners, everyone is wearing the same outfitting, it just feels so welcoming."

A private training complex is not unique to the U.S. committee, but "I'd like to think that we have the best,” Kirwan said, “but certainly other nations do it.”

Mike Gattone, head weightlifting coach with Team USA, said one advantage is that athletes have somewhere to train outside of the Olympic village, where there are set times to practice and sessions are limited to 90 minutes.

“Here, we can train twice a day if we want,” he said. “We can train for two hours or three hours.”

They can also bring in the athletes' own personal trainers, a luxury not enjoyed at the village.

The U.S. qualified nearly 600 athletes for the Olympics, but with such a big committee, Team USA could not credential all of the athletes' personal trainers to get into the village with them, Gattone said.

“Our athletes are used to being with their personal coach all year long,” Gattone said, "so coming here, we get to keep the personal coach and athlete together. And that’s really, really big.”

Weightlifter Jourdan Delacruz likes the option of having access to other athletes at the Olympic village, as well as the separate training center.

At the village, she got a massage next to Simone Biles and Jordan Chiles of the U.S. women's gymnastics team on Monday, and Biles broke down the intricacies of gymnastics scoring while they all watched the U.S. men compete in the team final. Then, Delacruz was able to wind down at the U.S. facility in a setting that feels almost like home, even if she's far from there.

“This is something that we’re very used to,” Delacruz said. "This has been very comforting. It’s been really easy to adjust as an athlete, traveling all the way out here to Paris. I’m really grateful that Team USA has this place for us to be as comfortable as possible.”

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AP Summer Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/2024-paris-olympic-games