The new Olympic Village has opened in Uzbekistan’s capital Tashkent as the largest sports complex in the country.
The Uzbek President’s Office said that ahead of Uzbekistan’s Independence Day celebrations on 1 September, President Shavkat Mirziyoyev visited the Olympic Village.
The $290-million complex took just three years to complete and features five large sports facilities over 100 hectares, including a 2,200-seat velodrome, 12,000-seat stadium, an Aquatics Palace, as well as separate arenas for team sports and martial arts.
As part of the project’s commitment to inclusion and health, the village will also be home to an accessible dormitory for 400 Paralympian athletes and a Sports Medicine Center.
The new complex will allow Uzbekistan to host the World and Asian Championships, as well as Paralympic tournaments for the first time.
As well as providing a platform for international competitions, the Olympic facilities will be used as a training site for national teams, dual education and mass sports programmes.
President Mirziyoyev stated that the development is intended to be “a symbol of the creative potential of the people and the achievements of national sports.”
Mirziyoyev also stressed ambitions to develop table tennis in schools and communities, as well as to create new opportunities for cycling across the regions.
All buildings of the Olympic complex are designed with energy efficiency in mind. Solar panels will be installed in the parking lots, and modern climate systems will be introduced in the sports facilities, which provide a stable temperature and lighting suitable for both athletes and TV broadcasts.
The completion of the Olympic village is part of a broad programme of transformations that have been taking place in Uzbekistan over the past seven years since Mirziyoyev entered office.
He said, “Here, not only training, but also sports education, science, and medicine must be integrated. In other words, this place will become a scientific, practical, and training center for the sports of our country.”
The village is also home to the Ministry of Sports, the Anti-Doping Agency, the State Sports Academy, the Research Institute of Physical Culture, and the Center for the Development of Sports.
The main objective is to create a sustainable system for training athletes and ensure conditions for achieving high results not only at a single Olympic Games, but for many years to come.
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