The Summer Universiade Athletes’ Village in New Taipei City’s Linkou District (林口) was officially opened yesterday.
Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲), International University Sports Federation president Oleg Matytsin, Taipei Universiade Organizing Committee chief executive officer Su Li-chiung (蘇麗瓊) and Athletes’ Village director Chiang Han-sun (江漢聲) attended the opening ceremony yesterday afternoon.
“Taipei is now ready to welcome the world with the best of our hospitality,” Ko said in his speech.
Photo: CNA
The village includes 34 buildings, each 12 stories to 21 stories high. Athletes’ accommodation ranging from one to four-bedroom units occupies 23 of the buildings, each of which has a rest area, a service counter and a medical room.
The village has a cafeteria that can seat up to 3,500 people, is to run 20 hours per day and should serve an estimated 35,000 to 40,000 meals daily featuring different cuisines from around the world.
Commercial services, such as dry cleaners, beauty salons, flower shops, banks, a post office and an official souvenir shop are also included.
Photo: CNA
A central security command center has been set up in the village and more than 500 officers have been stationed there, Taipei Special Police Corps deputy chief Lin Chun-yi (林浚奕) said, adding that they are to conduct patrols around the clock to keep the athletes safe.
A 3m-high fence around the perimeter of the village is to channel all people entering and leaving the area through restricted checkpoints at designated entrances, Lin said.
To enter the village, athletes must wear their identification badges, which are to be checked by card readers, he said, adding that their belongings are to also be checked by an X-ray machine.
Photo: CNA
Athletes must also pass through a metal detector door and may be scanned with a handheld metal detector if necessary, Lin said.
Any cars entering the village are to be checked with metal detectors and under-vehicle explosive scanners, he added.
During Ko’s visit, he lay down on a bed in a three-bedroom unit to test its comfort level, drank a cup of bubble milk tea and ate a few Taiwanese snacks from the cafeteria.
The bedroom unit was nice, especially the air-conditioning, Ko said, adding that he thinks the scale and quality of the village, especially the cafeteria, were better than the village in South Korea’s Gwangju he had visited.
Responding to questions about not being able to play the national anthem or raise the national flag during the opening ceremony, he said: “The city government has done the best it could, but the [Chinese Taipei Universiade] flag and the [national flag] anthem were registered with the application to hold the games.”
The city government must conform to the Agreement Between the International Olympic Committee, Lausanne and the Chinese Taipei Olympic Committee, Taipei, Ko said.
Responding to questions about why he said “Taiwan” rather than “Chinese Taipei” in his opening speech yesterday, Ko said: “We are Taiwan. Otherwise, who are we?”
The Summer Universiade is to be held from Saturday to Aug. 30. More than 7,639 athletes are expected to compete.
Additional reporting by CNA
TRAFFIC SAFETY RULES: A positive result in a drug test would result in a two-year license suspension for the driver and vehicle, and a fine of up to NT$180,000 The Ministry of Transportation and Communications is to authorize police to conduct roadside saliva tests by the end of the year to deter people from driving while under the influence of narcotics, it said yesterday. The ministry last month unveiled a draft of amended regulations governing traffic safety rules and penalties, which included provisions empowering police to conduct mandatory saliva tests on drivers. While currently rules authorize police to use oral fluid testing kits for signs of drug use, they do not establish penalties for noncompliance or operating procedures for officers to follow, the ministry said. The proposed changes to the regulations require
Taipei, New Taipei City, Keelung and Taoyuan would issue a decision at 8pm on whether to cancel work and school tomorrow due to forecasted heavy rain, Keelung Mayor Hsieh Kuo-liang (謝國樑) said today. Hsieh told reporters that absent some pressing reason, the four northern cities would announce the decision jointly at 8pm. Keelung is expected to receive between 300mm and 490mm of rain in the period from 2pm today through 2pm tomorrow, Central Weather Administration data showed. Keelung City Government regulations stipulate that school and work can be canceled if rain totals in mountainous or low-elevation areas are forecast to exceed 350mm in
EVA Airways president Sun Chia-ming (孫嘉明) and other senior executives yesterday bowed in apology over the death of a flight attendant, saying the company has begun improving its health-reporting, review and work coordination mechanisms. “We promise to handle this matter with the utmost responsibility to ensure safer and healthier working conditions for all EVA Air employees,” Sun said. The flight attendant, a woman surnamed Sun (孫), died on Friday last week of undisclosed causes shortly after returning from a work assignment in Milan, Italy, the airline said. Chinese-language media reported that the woman fell ill working on a Taipei-to-Milan flight on Sept. 22
1.4nm WAFERS: While TSMC is gearing up to expand its overseas production, it would also continue to invest in Taiwan, company chairman and CEO C.C. Wei said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC) has applied for permission to construct a new plant in the Central Taiwan Science Park (中部科學園區), which it would use for the production of new high-speed wafers, the National Science and Technology Council said yesterday. The council, which supervises three major science parks in Taiwan, confirmed that the Central Taiwan Science Park Bureau had received an application on Friday from TSMC, the world’s largest contract chipmaker, to commence work on the new A14 fab. A14 technology, a 1.4 nanometer (nm) process, is designed to drive artificial intelligence transformation by enabling faster computing and greater power
RSS