Ten thousand steps and more. The Covid, but also very high temperatures with high humidity. These are the constraints weighing on the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games, already postponed for a year due to a pandemic and rescheduled from July 23 to August 8. In 2018, two years almost to the day before the originally scheduled date of their opening, a historic heat wave in Japan, with temperatures exceeding 41 ° C, resulted in 65 fatal heatstrokes in one week.
To reduce the risks of what promises to be the hottest Olympic Games in history, for athletes but also for spectators and workers, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) has created a specific working group. The times of some competitions will be staggered, and the marathon and walking events will take place in Sapporo, where the weather is milder.
The IOC experts have also just published, April 21 in the British Journal of Sports Medicine (BJSM), recommendations for the immediate management of heat stroke on exertion, in order to minimize the risk of sequelae and death. Defined as exercise hyperthermia – core temperature typically above 40.5 ° C – with dysfunction of the central nervous system causing confusion, aggressiveness, disturbances of consciousness…, these are indeed medical emergencies.
The group of experts recommends installing specialized devices near medical tents. The goal is to be able to cool a victim on site in the first 30 minutes with an ice bath, until his temperature drops below 39 ° C. It is only then that a transfer to the hospital is carried out.
“If you want to compete in the heat, you have to train in the heat” – Sébastien Racinais, member of the medical and scientific commission for the Tokyo Olympics
But it is on prevention, in particular through acclimatization to the heat, that most of the efforts are being made. Since a year, the BJSM has dedicated a series of editorials to this theme, to provide information to clinicians. Concrete documents are also accessible to athletes, for example on the Olympic athletes website.
“If you want to compete in the heat, you have to train in the heat. It’s basic, but it’s not yet done by everyone ”, summarizes Sébastien Racinais, member of the medical and scientific commission for the Tokyo Olympics and research manager at Aspetar, the sports medicine hospital in Doha (Qatar). This strategy is gradually entering into practice: in 2015, only 15% of participants in the World Athletics Championships in Beijing had acclimatized to the heat, when the proportion reached 63% for those in Doha in 2019, underlines the doctor. in sports science.
You have 39.19% of this article left to read. The rest is for subscribers only.