With the Paris Olympic Games just over a month away, athletes and climate scientists are warning of the dire consequences competitors could face as intense heat continues to impact and jeopardise sporting events around the world.
In a report released today titled, Rings of Fire: Heat Risks at the 2024 Paris Olympics, 20 world class athletes and several Olympians, including eight from the sport of athletics, joined climate scientists and leading heat physiologists from the University of Portsmouth to unpack the serious threat extreme heat poses for athletes.
Alrick Swaby tells us more.
The report discusses the deadly heatwave in France in 2003, which killed more than 14,000 people, and subsequent years of record-breaking temperatures, exceeding 42°C.
It underscores the heightened risk of extreme heat during the Games in Paris where the average early August temperatures have risen by 3.1°C since 1924 when the French capital last hosted the Olympics.
The French weather forecaster Meteo France has already predicted warmer than normal conditions for May to July across the country.
The report is a follow-up to the first, released in the lead-in to the Tokyo Olympic Games in 2021 which became known as the “hottest in history,” with temperatures exceeding 34°C and humidity reaching nearly 70 percent, leading to severe health risks for competitors.
In the Japanese capital, wheelchairs were deployed to carry athletes from sun-scorched areas, competitors fainted at finish lines and the fear of dying on court was even raised mid-match by the Tokyo Games’ number two seeded tennis player Daniel Medvedev.
The Paris Games have the potential to surpass that, researchers said, with climate change driven by the burning of fossil fuels contributing to record heat streaks in recent months.
The year 2023 was the hottest on record according to the EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service, and 2024 has continued the streak.
Experts at Copernicus said, April 2024 was warmer globally than any previous April in the record books.
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