Paris Olympics Expected To Be The Hottest Games On Record: Intense Heat Forecast Could Threaten Health Of Athletes

Leading athletes at the Paris Olympics have warned that the extreme heat predicted during the competition could threaten their health.

Heat Wave In Paris

The Olympics in Tokyo last summer were the hottest on record, but a new analysis on heat risk indicates that temperatures in Paris this year will be higher.

The average temperature in Paris at this time of year has increased by roughly 3.1 degrees Celsius (or 5.5 degrees Fahrenheit) since the city last hosted the Summer Games in 1924.

In the city of love, heat waves are becoming more frequent and intense.

The problem in the Paris region has only gotten worse due to the "urban heat island effect," which states that metropolitan areas typically get warmer than rural ones.

Paris experiences summertime highs of over 32 degrees Celsius. Exactly five years before the summer Olympic Games are set to start, on July 25, 2019, Paris recorded its highest temperature ever, measuring 42 degrees Celsius.

According to earlier studies, Paris is one of the European capitals most susceptible to heat-related issues. According to a study published in November, heat waves can produce temperatures as much as 7 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than those in 2003, which resulted in 15,000 extra deaths in France during a heat wave in 2003.

More than 5,000 individuals in France lost their lives to the intense heat last summer.

Kaitlyn Trudeau, who serves as senior research associate for climate science at Climate Central, said that she is still surprised at the timing of these Olympics. 

She said they have seen some deadly heat waves in the exact location at the exact time in the recent history.

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Athletes' Health

Athletes training and competing in these games run the risk of suffering from anything from heat cramps to heat stroke.

Rugby player James Farndale, who has played for Great Britain and Scotland, claims that before participating in the Dubai Seven, he trained in heat chambers at a training camp in Scotland. He cautioned that even in risky situations, athletes are not programmed to back off.

Nearly one in every 100 athletes experienced a heat-related illness during the Tokyo Olympics, which resulted in athletes throwing up and even fainting at the finish line.

During the last summer Olympics, a participant voiced concerns about heat exhaustion during a match. Top-five men's tennis player Daniel Medvedev took several medical time-outs throughout his match before his coach asked him to go on.

The local organizing committee for Paris 2024 said that Météo France, the French weather bureau, will be integrated into the Olympic Games' operations center. The group can be expanded, the competition schedule can be adjusted as needed, and free water refills will be made accessible to spectators in large quantities.

The two-time Olympic gold medalist and president of World Athletics, Sebastian Coe, stated that the effects of global warming on athletes "can be varied and wide-ranging," ranging from minor problems that affect performance, like sleep disruption and last-minute changes to event timings, to serious health effects, like heat-related stress and injury.

Coe pointed out that while global temperatures continue to rise, climate change should increasingly be viewed as an existential threat to sport.

He said that humanity has been in a race against time, noting that the said race is something that we cannot afford to lose.

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