Paris Olympics: to beat the summer heat, athletes bring cool technology to French capital
- Athletes expected to swelter in height of European summer, with temperatures predicted to effect performance
As the Paris Olympics draw near, temperatures will only continue to get hotter, giving athletes additional challenges as they seek to bring home medals.
Temperatures are expected to soar again in the European summer, after setting records in 2023, and although it is too early for an exact forecast for July, national weather agency Meteo-France said warmer than normal conditions were most likely.
There will be no air conditioning in the athletes’ rooms at Paris 2024, which has pledged to host the greenest ever Games, meaning they will have to pay more attention to their body temperatures as they train, recover and compete.
“It can be very hot and miserable [in Paris], as it was in Tokyo during the last Olympics,” said Craig Heller, a biology professor at Stanford University who specialises in body temperature regulation. “And that increase in environmental temperature has lots of effects on performance.”
Stanford University, in California’s Bay Area, is well known for Olympic athletes with at least one medallist at every Games since 1912 being linked with the school. Stanford-affiliated athletes won 26 medals in Tokyo and 27 in Rio in 2016.
The school’s researchers, such as Heller, have had the opportunity to study body temperature regulation, and the proximity to Silicon Valley has allowed tech to enter the playing field.