Sweating Bullets: If Climate Change can Happen to Elite Sportsmen, Imagine what could Happen to you
Two years ago, temperatures in the cockpits of the vehicles soared more than 50 degrees celsius during the Qatar Grand Prix, with drivers suffering from severe dehydration, heat exhaustion, and other heat-related illnesses, many of the sportsmen retiring or close to passing out.
In July, temperatures climbed to 90 degrees Fahrenheit) (32 degrees Celsius) at TQL Stadium, Cincinnati in the United States, when Mamelodi Sundowns and Borussia Dortmund squared off in the Club World Cup, a situation that made Dortmund’s coach, Niki Kovac, to say he “was sweating like I’ve just come out of a sauna.”
Last week, temperatures and humidity reached as high as thirty-four degrees Celsius and eighty percent respectively at the Shanghai Masters, forcing seven lawn tennis players to retire during matches ahead of the quarter finals, with the same condition taking place five hundred kilometers away at Wuhan in the women’s game, many of them having to complain about the brutal heat.
If climate change could affect lawn tennis players, footballers, and motor racers like this, causing them to pass out and vomit, the future for less fit people could be dire indeed.
A 2023 study of the Australian Open over three years found an exertional heat illness (EHI) incidence of 14.71 per 1,000 match exposures, with cases correlating with higher Wet Bulb Globe Temperature (WBET), while another study found that when temperatures exceeded 17 degrees Celsius, the double fault rate increased from 3.5 to 4.5 percent at 30 degrees Celsius.
A study in 2012 noted that soccer players ran five to ten percent less distance in a temperature of 30 degrees Celsius compared to moderate conditions of 21 degrees Celsius, while matches played with a WBET above 24 degrees Celsius saw a decrease of around 10 percent in total sprints and 24.8 meters per minute per play in high-intensity covers.
A study published in Climate Risks in Motor Racing named heat as one of the most common threats to the formula one calendar, affecting many circuits, impairing the decision-making capacity of drivers, increasing the likelihood of their errors, and allowing them to become susceptible to heat exhaustion.
A 2023 study of the US Masters found that weather-related delays resulted in players taking an average of 1.1 more shots in the first round of the golf competition, while the risk of injuries such as cardiac arrhythmias increased during extreme heat.
Study after study shows the same thing, that with heat-induced climate change, the performances of sportsmen declined in complex ways, rendering them vulnerable to heat-related exhaustion, disorientation, and loss of concentration.
In body-fat composition, a typical Premier League footballer in Britain has a body-fat percentage of around 10 percent, compared to 18 to 24 percent for the average male.
In terms of physical activity, golfers are superior to people who don’t engage in sports, able to exceed 10,000 steps per round of golf, versus 5,000 steps per day for people who spurn exertions from any kind of sporting activity, even though older than most people, and were more more likely to report high health-related quality of life.
In relation to so many metrics, lawn tennis players are on average significantly fitter than non-players, running an average distance of 4.4 kilometers during a match, a distance equal to 20 meters per point, with rallies sometimes 20 to 25 shots, entailing a lot of running around.
If climate change factors could humble lawn tennis players, footballers, golfers, and other sportsmen - making them suffer from heat exhaustion and declines in their overall performances - it means an ordinary person will go through worse in the near future, when global warming could escalate.
The reduction in the use of fossil fuel, a worldwide shift to exploiting more renewable energy resources, and controlling consumption could prevent a situation where people become less productive during a climate crisis.
What to Eat
Vegan food from Nepal, Credit, Taste of Everest Fairfield