As temperatures continue to rise across Europe, a new study highlights the impact on elite athletes’ health - and urges summer sports’ organisers to re-think when they host their events.
Many of Europe’s biggest sporting events take place in the summer, but the progressive creep of climate change and resulting rising temperatures pose a growing threat to athletes, a new study reports.
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Looking at the Tour de France specifically, researchers analysed climate data associated with more than 50 previous editions of the race. They concluded that the risk of heat stress for participants has increased steadily over the years, with the highest number of extreme heat episodes recorded in the last decade.
The Tour de France is the largest and most prestigious cycling event in the world, having begun in 1903 and taking place every year - bar during World War I and II - since.
Participants cover roughly 3,300 to 3,500 kilometers across 23 days, navigating 21 stages of challenging terrains throughout the route. It traditionally ends on the Avenue Champs-Élysées in Paris.
While the race has so far managed to avoid the heat conditions that pose a maximum risk, this was, in some cases, only by a matter of days or tenths of a degree, the study notes.
“In our analysis, we observe that the city of Paris, for example, has crossed the high-risk threshold for heat on five occasions in July, four of them since 2014. Other cities have experienced many days of extreme heat in July, but thankfully not on the date of a Tour de France stage,” Ivana Cvijanovic, researcher at the French National Research Institute for Sustainable Development (IRD) and first author of the study, wrote in a press release.
“In a way, we can say that it is an extremely fortunate race, but with record-breaking heatwaves becoming more frequent, it is only a matter of time before the Tour encounters an extreme heat stress day that will test existing safety protocols,” she added.
Where is the heat risk highest?
By analysing the different times and locations of the race between 1974 and 2023, the researchers could clearly assess heat stress risk levels. Their findings, which were published in the Scientific Reports journal, include insights into which areas have been most impacted by rising temperatures.
Toulouse, Pau, and Bordeaux in southwestern France, and around Nîmes and Perpignan in the southeast, all showed the most dangerous levels of heat. However, the study also warns that Paris and Lyon are increasingly crossing a similar threshold for being high risk.
Desislava Petrova, a researcher at Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGLOBAL), said that “Extra caution should be exercised when planning stages in these regions.”
The analysis also showed morning hours to be safest, while higher heat tended to persist into the late afternoon, suggesting a need for adapting schedules and routes for stronger safeguarding.
A growing problem for all sports
Climate change is one of the most urgent issues of our time, with weather conditions becoming increasingly erratic across the continent, leading to a multitude of still-unfurling consequences.
The regions of Central and Southern Europe have seen extreme heat levels increase approximately tenfold from 2010 to 2024 compared to 1961 to 1990, according to new figures.
Meanwhile, ahead of Paris’ 2024 Olympics, NASA reported that the city's temperatures had increased by 3.1 degrees Celsius since it hosted the Games a century prior.
Such high temperatures can be severely detrimental to people’s health, especially during sporting events, where the dangers of exhaustion and heatstroke loom larger. Previous studies have shown a significant correlation between air temperature and the number of runners that collapse during half marathons.
While most organisers have safety protocols in place for athletes and attendees, the study highlights a greater need for reconsidering how and when all sporting events are hosted - especially elite ones.
It also asserts that more research is needed to fully understand the impact of extreme temperatures on the human body, especially those pushing it to its physical limits.
“To investigate sport-specific vulnerabilities, we would need access to anonymised physiological data that would allow us to go beyond heat indices alone,” James Begg, a researcher at Galson Sciences Limited (GSL), said.