The Paris 2024 Olympics has taken the world by storm: from Yusuf Dikec’s relaxed shooting demeanor, to Kim Ye-Ji’s confident stances, to China’s mesmerizing Artistic Swimming performance. There are however two unsung heroes powering all of this: Building Information Modelling (BIM) and BIM-powered digital replicas called Digital Twins. The latter, broadly, are virtual representations of objects or systems that simulate their real-life counterparts’ functionalities in real-time.
BIM and Digital Twins have been of paramount importance to the Paris 2024 Olympics. They have empowered athletes to train more intelligently and effectively, promoted the legacy usability of stadiums and the Athletes Village, and supported the development of sustainable and agile infrastructures built specifically for the events.
Let us get into the specifics of how these innovative technologies support the Olympics below!
Digital Twins for Enhanced Athlete Training
Digital Twins for Swimmers
Digital Twins are used at the 2024 Paris Olympic Games to assist swimmers in strategic body optimization and race planning. These virtual replicas use advanced sensors to study the body movements of swimmers and measure their force distribution, enabling them to pinpoint flaws in their technique and adjust their training accordingly. Their applicability is not limited to body movements: they can also analyze breathing patterns and tempos to optimize every aspect of the swimmer’s performance and improve their odds of victory.
It is reported that the Olympian Katherine Douglass used digital twins to optimize her head position and improve her 200-meter breaststroke time – exemplifying how impactful this technology can be.
Digital Twins for Surfing Simulations
Digital Twins were used to create wave pools that simulated ideal surfing conditions, miles away from the ocean, for training purposes. Replicas of these pools and their pneumatic fans helped analyze airflow and wave-strength, which led to optimized environments that could generate more than 400 waves an hour. Such pools enable athletes to practice surfing in an environment that captures a typical surfing experience in the ocean. Finally, the data monitoring and predictive maintenance that Digital Twins offer ensure efficient facility operations can be performed.
Digital Twins Support Soccer / Football Training
Digital Twins provide a wide array of data pertaining to football in real time, which allows for deep performance analysis and tailored training programs.
By running simulations of various gameplay scenarios, coaches can analyze players’ biomechanics to devise strategies that enhance their movements and decision-making. Furthermore, wearable sensors capture players’ physiological parameters, which is then replicated using digital twins to study fatigue levels and predict injuries. All of this culminates in the designing of personalized training regimens that optimize performance while minimizing injury.
BIM Modeling Ensures Sustainable Infrastructural Legacies
Athletes Village’s Profound Legacy
One prevalent problem with the construction of stadiums, athlete villages, and other projects for the Olympics has been the functionality and utility of these projects after the Olympics events were over. For the 2024 Paris Olympics, architects, designers, and engineers are committed to ensuring the legacy of these structures and their adaptive reusability. Interactive 3D Models powered by BIM were instrumental in helping developers, local governing bodies, and public stakeholders in designing Paris’s Athletes Village as a hub that reconnected the underutilized Sienne region —Ile Saint-Denis, Saint-Denis, and Saint-Quen — with other metropolitan areas across Paris, not just during the Olympics but well into the future to meet the city’s evolving needs.
Looking ahead, Parisians will greatly benefit from the Athletes Village for many years to come. The space will act as a nexus point to speed up the use of public transport between sites and the surrounding regions of the city. After the Olympics, the hamlet will be converted to a brand-new business and residential area with 6,000 additional apartments for existing residents. Additionally, 25% of these homes will be set aside for public housing and 33% will be rented out as affording housing for students and low-income workers. The underground power lines in the Canal Saint-Denis, which borders the Athletes’ Village, have also been re-engineered and are anticipated to raise living standards at relatively low energy and resource costs.
BIM Modeling Supported Eiffel Tower’s Makeover
The Eiffel Tower got a thorough makeover for the 2024 Olympics, shedding its familiar bronze-brown for a shade of gold as originally envisioned by the tower’s creator, Gustave Eiffel. While the Iron Lady is no stranger to renovations —having witnessed several of them since its 1889 debut— previous renovations were merely focused on aesthetics. For the 2024 Olympics, such revamps were not simply facelifts, but a total optimization of the tower and its surrounding areas, while keeping the tower’s iconic aura intact. This monumental task of reengineering required the processing of a staggering amount of data, like:
- A 324-meter tower, including its 18,000 metal components and 2.5 million rivets
- Gravel paths
- 425 benches
- 560 lights
- 25 statues
- 100 bins
- 1,000 buildings
- 8,200 trees
All of this amounted to over 350 GB in data and cost over 50 million euros; and it was all made possible with the support of BIM.
BIM with its smart 3D Modelling and collaborative environments, allowed designers and developers to reimagine the Tower and its surroundings as an agile system that catered to the citizens’ 21st-century needs like pedestrian mobility, sustainability, and green energy, and mitigating the effects of climate change catastrophes.
This data-driven approach and collaboration tools ensured detailed planning and execution down to every detail. Intricate scan-to-BIM and laser scanning services enabled the precise detailing and documentation of the necessary structures and objects; BIM coordination also promoted streamlined communication and collaboration among architects, engineers, and contractors that ensured efficient and cost-effective delivery of these models. The Virtual Design and Construction (VDC) powered VR tours let Parisians visualize these designs, helping them choose a winning design and fostering in them a sense of project ownership in the process. Finally, the detailed 3D Models also allowed for the adherence of Paris’ strict building codes, ensuring a hassle-free design process.
The winning design reintroduced greenery and reclaimed pedestrian spaces; it also brought in reinforced lawns and two new amphitheaters on the Champs de Mars gardens to create incredibly vibrant gathering spots for Parisians.
Digital Twins Guarantee Sustainable Stadiums
During the construction of stadiums in Athens and Barcelona for their own respective Olympics, organizers and developers did not have access to technology that helped them plan and build stadiums with that were environmentally sustainable and cost-effective. The stadium development process in Paris, however, is already reaping the benefits of innovative modeling and designing solutions like BIM, Digital Twins, and AI integrations, which has led to the delivery of stadiums that were both carbon and cost conscious.
Since multiple stakeholders need to communicate and collaborate on such projects, there is usually a high chance of errors and inconsistencies materializing, leading to project delays and extra costs. This is where digitization can help to ensure accuracy, transparency and flexibility while managing complex supply chains, guaranteeing more sustainable outcomes.
With BIM’s ability to gather and compile data into intelligent and interactive models, the creation of digital twins of stadiums were possible. These replicas allowed developers and stakeholders to visualize how the different components of stadiums interact with each other, enabling them to make data-driven lifecycle plans that increase efficiency with sustainability in mind, for example, in the 2024 Olympics, stadiums use rooftop solar panels to run on 100 percent renewable energy.
Digital Twins for Optimized Olympics Infrastructure
Pont Alexandre III was Optimized for Triathlons
The Pont Alexandre is a classic bridge across the River Seine that connects two Paris 2024 venues, Grand Palais and Invalides, while itself being the stage for multiple events like Triathlons and Para Triathlons.
With BIM Scanning, 3D Modeling, and the creation of Digital Twins, the developers and organizing committee can visualize the temporary overlays that need to be implemented onto the bridge, and subsequently, plan the surrounding’s crowd and traffic management. Its responsive features make any change of 2D plans be reflected in real-time as 3D visualizations, making it easy to account for variables like weather changes and temporary infrastructures —like media spaces seating zones. Therefore, BIM and Digital Twins have given the organizing committee confidence to account for multiple variables for various use-cases, ensuring the smooth functioning of events at Pont Alexandre III.
Digital Twins Propelled the Construction of Le Bourget
Le Bourget is one of two sports facilities built specifically for Paris 2024. The space has been used to host Sport Climbing events, boasting five climbing walls posted both indoors and outdoors, alongside walls that can be used for warm-ups or recreation.
Digital Twins enabled organizers to visualize how the new space would look like. Efficient load times of these models enabled them to sift through different spaces quickly to speed up the planning process, guaranteeing that this new space was well-optimized to host the Sport Climbing events.
A Well Integrated Aquatics Center using Digital Twins
The Aquatics Centre is the second newly built permanent venue for the Paris 2024 Olympics; it is hosting Artistic Swimming, Diving, and Water Polo.
This venue is also home to a large venue district that needed to be fundamentally weaved into the planning process. Digital Twins were used here to plan the integration of this district into the venue operations, accounting for crowd movement during different events. This enabled the organizers and engineers to plan for resource timelines, security, and crowd management.
Conclusion
The reach and extent of BIM and Digital Twins have always been more profound than one might expect. As we have seen, they have been used by athletes and coaches to create tailored training that optimizes their performance, by engineers and architects to create sustainable and functionality-optimized infrastructure for sports and events, and by city planners to ensure a long-lasting legacy of the constructions built for the Olympics. All of these are well-needed changes and innovations that push the Olympics forward but also enable the Architecture, Engineering, and Construction (AEC) Industry to model complex buildings and structures of massive scale while ensuring cost and carbon emission reduction.
