The deadly opponent no athlete can outrun
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
This is an RNZ Podcast.
How is climate change making major sporting events hotter and more dangerous?
Could the World Cup winners be decided by the sun? Climate analysis is predicting dangerous heat and humidity during several FIFA World Cup matches across the US and Mexico. Making stadiums feel more like a sauna than a playing field, the heat and humidity can take a major toll on player performance and fan safety.
The heat will not only affect those players, but all athletes who compete outdoors this summer. Most recently, it was the FIFA Football World Cup. But the beautiful game isn't alone. It actually joins a long list of vastly different sports, from tennis to cycling, that are battling the same problem. They're being played in an era of rising temperatures. Will this be the hottest Wimbledon ever? Tennis' most prestigious tournament is breaking records, but not the kind that players want.
The scorching weather has already impacted competition, with world number one Yannick Sinner seeing his 30-match winning streak snapped after struggling in the heat during his second round match. The Tour de France has survived wars, strikes, and a pandemic. Heat may be the next gate. Temperatures at the Grand Depart in Barcelona and into southern France have in some cases hit 40 degrees centigrade. At these extremes, managing body isn't just about comfort, is it? It's about performance and really survival.
Hi, I'm Amanda Gillies and today on The Detail, how do sports stars beat the heat while beating their opponents? And how does the world address the risks of extreme weather so that sporting and mass gathering events remain safe and healthy?
Eventually people will start dying at these, which hopefully it doesn't come to that to be the catalyst to make these changes.
That's Nick Daniels, who researches how the body can adapt to heat. More from him in a moment, along with Caroline McManus from High Performance Sport New Zealand.
I find it incredibly frustrating because I feel we're putting people at risk and our jobs now are to make sure that we are keeping them safe while they try to perform at their very best.
But first, former Olympian and Black Sticks hockey star Bianca Russell, who knows firsthand the perils of playing in the heat. While training in Singapore before the Olympics, she ended up needing hospital care after she stripped off to cool down.
Rookie mistake. It was so hot and humid, of course, in Singapore. I think we were pushing up toward that 40 degree Celsius mark. So what did we do? Of course, we started stripping off layers underneath all the goalkeeping gear that we would wear. And straight away I got, you know, a skin abrasion on my shins. And I didn't think anything of it. I was like, oh, it's unfortunate, you know, because I'd taken my socks and put some low socks on instead of your big thick hockey socks, right? Yeah. It didn't take very long, being in the tropics, for that to get horribly infected. And by the time we got up to Beijing, I was putting in a medical call to our home doctor to say, what do we do about this? It looks horrific.
And off we went to a little Western medicine A&E clinic. I feel so sorry for my poor physiotherapist who was just having to deal with it. We had to like peel horrible skins and things off every few hours until we got rid of this infection. It was just horrific. Anyway, rookie mistake. But I mean, certainly not the worst thing that I've ever had happen in terms of heat related hazards of being a hockey goalkeeper travelling overseas. But certainly that was the first one that I encountered.
What's it like when you are out on the field playing in that 40-degree heat? What toll does that take on you, your ability to play, and even think?
Look, it is challenging. Ultimately, you are steaming up a lot. I mean, we do a lot in terms of ice buckets behind the goal, you know, rags, so you can grab an ice pack and stick it on the back of your neck, dribble some cold water, whatever you need to do. But obviously, you can only do that when the play's not down your end of the field. But what you'll find is that when you've left the field and you've rehydrated and you sort of come back to the next game or what happens on the next day, that's when you'll notice the impact of having played a hot game.
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Chapters
5 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:01–0:04
2
How is climate change making major sporting events hotter and more dangerous?
0:04–4:24
3
Which sports and recent events have been impacted by extreme heat?
4:24–13:06
4
What are athletes' firsthand experiences of competing in 40°C heat?
13:06–19:52
5
How does extreme heat affect player performance, recovery and cognition?
19:52–23:41