As a boy, we had no AC. The athletes can do as we did, sit on their tree shaded porches to get relief from the heat. I’m sure that’s the building design spoken of to make AC unessential.
Before AC we slept in the basement on surplus army cots when it was extremely hot in the second or third floor bedrooms. We were just kids, though, not top level athletes competing in the Olympics.
I grew up in Houston when our schools were not air conditioned and I didn’t get it in our house until we got one window unit during my teens.
As a young man I never dreamed that the 21st century would involve so much moving backwards.