Olympic Heat

"The finish line of the men’s triathlon Monday morning looked something like a battlefield scene, bodies sprawled out on ground, trainers coming to the aid of overheated athletes, even a few being helped off with their arms draped over shoulders.

This despite the Olympics moving the start time to 6:30 a.m. in an effort to beat the heat that, as these Tokyo Games have proven, remains undefeated. Temps still reached 85 degrees with a relative humidity of 67.1 percent at start time.

No, the Japanese don’t have to apologize for the weather here — the searing sun, the sky high temps, the pea-soup humidity. No one tells Mother Nature what to do.

But as athletes continue to wilt and wither in these conditions, they do owe everyone an apology for this much: They lied like hell about it.

“With many days of mild and sunny weather, this period provides an ideal climate for athletes to perform their best.”

This quote comes from Japan’s official proposal to host the 2020 Summer Olympics.

Mild? Ideal? Here in Tokyo in July?...

“Playing in extreme heat and humidity, it’s very challenging,” said Serbian tennis star Novak Djokovic. “It’s something we’ve known coming into Tokyo, we heard and expected the conditions would be very tough, but before you come here and experience that, you don’t really know how difficult it is.”

These are, literally, the finest athletes in the world. When they say it’s difficult, it’s difficult.

Tokyo is, depending how you measure it, the largest city in the world, with a metro population of over 34 million. It is modern, friendly, beautiful and clean. It’s an incredible place. Except for this time of year.

And they knew it, but claimed otherwise anyway, even boasting they’d provide a place “where athletes can perform at their best.”

The last time Tokyo hosted the Summer Games was 1964. It was held in October to avoid just these kinds of conditions. That made sense....

The Summer Games start between mid-July and late-August now because these months produce far higher television ratings around much of the world. That’s especially true in the United States, when NBC doesn’t have to compete with the NFL, college football, the start of the school year or much else.

Since money always talks with the IOC, here we are. Athlete concerns might have mattered back in 1964. That was then. This is billions.

So Japan put out a bid with a farcical vision of idyllic summer days, like a soft breeze through Northern Wisconsin. And the IOC just pretended not to notice and nodded right along with it.

“What [is] the penalty, if any, for false advertising,” the Japan Times wondered almost a decade ago.

Whatever it is, it appears it’s the athletes who are paying it."

sports.yahoo.com/japan-lied-about-the-weather-and-now-olympians-are-paying-the-price-010612634.html

"Novak Djokovic and Daniil Medvedev - the world’s top two men’s tennis players - led calls to organizers on Saturday to move matches to the late afternoon for the rest of the competition to save players from the stifling conditions.

World No. 2 Medvedev suggested moving all matches to the evening."

english.alarabiya.net/sports/2021/07/25/Intense-heat-humidity-at-Tokyo-Olympics-may-force-games-to-be-rescheduled-


Will they heed the athletes, or the advertisers?