Taranto's athletes' village sails in: two cruise ships to house 4,000 at the Mediterranean Games
The AROYA has berthed inside the Italian Navy's base in Taranto, with a second ship due, four days before the 20th Mediterranean Games open.
Four days before the 20th Mediterranean Games open in Taranto, the athletes' village arrived by sea. The cruise ship AROYA berthed inside the Italian Navy's base in the city on Sunday, and a second vessel, Romantika, was due the following day. Together the two ships will hold roughly 4,000 athletes and delegation members from across the Mediterranean for the duration of the Games.
The organising committee is calling the pair the Mediterranean Village. Its president, Massimo Ferrarese, described AROYA as a home on the water for the athletes, sitting in the heart of a working naval base — an arrangement put together with the Italian Navy, whose chief of staff, Giuseppe Berutti Bergotto, he credited with making the logistics possible.
Why a ship instead of a village
Housing is the hardest single problem in staging a multi-sport event in a mid-sized city. A purpose-built village is the conventional answer and the most expensive one, and it leaves a host with thousands of rooms to fill once the athletes have gone. Chartering accommodation that can simply sail away afterwards sidesteps both the capital cost and the legacy question, and it is a solution a port city is uniquely placed to use.
The committee says the ships come fitted with what a village would otherwise have to provide from scratch: catering, gyms, wellness and rest areas, dedicated medical facilities and space for athletes to spend their downtime.
The Games
Taranto stages the 20th edition of the Mediterranean Games from 21 August to 3 September, under the motto "Embrace the Future". Italy has named one of its largest delegations to the event, 498 athletes split almost evenly between men and women.
For a city whose international profile has been dominated for decades by the steelworks on its outskirts, the Games are the largest sporting event it has ever held — and mooring the athletes inside the naval base is a fittingly maritime way to solve the problem of where to put them.
