Fifty-seven years ago, when the Summer Games were last held in
Tokyo, the average high temperature was about 20C, and the warmest day was 23C.
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But the 1964
Olympics were held in the cooler, drier month of
October. This time around, the nightly lows in Tokyo are hotter than that
previous high of 23C. The calendar change is the main culprit, of course.
The International Olympic Committee required that cities bidding
for the 2020 Games hold the event between July 15 and August 31, barring
“exceptional circumstances.”
It has been more than 20 years since the Olympics have been held
outside that time frame. The 2000 Sydney Olympics, held in late September to
adjust to weather in the Southern Hemisphere, have been the least-viewed Summer
Games in the United States over the past several decades. (
Mexico City in 1968
and Seoul in 1988 held the Summer Games in October, too.)
For the time period that Tokyo officials chose to stage the
competition, the average high over the past two decades has been 32C, according
to data collected by the Japan Meteorological Agency.
The agency’s data also shows the effect of climate change on
summertime temperatures in Tokyo. The average daily high was 27C for the 10
Augusts before the 1964 Summer Games. For the 10 Augusts before the 2021 Games,
it was 28C.
Haruo Ozaki, the chairman of the Tokyo Medical Association, said
this month that holding the Games in July and August was a serious issue
because of the “high risks of heatstroke,” and not just because of the
coronavirus pandemic.
Olympic officials have put in place several heat-countering
measures across events. At Shiokaze Park on Tokyo Bay, where beach volleyball
is being held, organizers cooled off the sand with water from firefighter-grade
hoses and rolled out canopies to shade players on the sidelines. Among other
measures, organizers also installed electric fans and large-scale misting
towers, and a special coating of reflective material that reduces the surface
temperature over 137km of roads in the city’s center.
No event has felt the heat as intensely as tennis. This year
shaped up to be one of the hottest and most uncomfortable tennis tournaments
many athletes will ever play. Temperatures reached 90 degrees in the shade when
play got underway on Saturday, and they haven’t let up since.
On Wednesday, Paula Badosa of Spain suffered from heatstroke
during her quarterfinal match against Marketa Vondrousova of the Czech Republic
and had to leave the match early in a wheelchair. Daniil Medvedev of the
Russian Olympic Committee struggled to breathe through the hot and humid
conditions during a match against Fabio Fognini of Italy on Wednesday. He told
the chair umpire, “I can finish the match, but I can die.” (He did finish.)
Medvedev still managed to win and advanced to the quarterfinals,
but he lost to Pablo Carreño Busta of Spain on Thursday.
In response to the conditions, the International Tennis
Federation announced that beginning Thursday, tennis matches at the Tokyo Games
would start at 3 pm local time instead of 11 am.
Olympic officials have had an extreme-weather policy in place
for tennis, which provides for modifications of play and 10-minute breaks
because of temperatures. The policy kicks in once the wet-bulb globe
temperature — an index that measures heat stress on the human body — reaches
30.1 degrees Celsius.
But the heat this year was not unexpected. In 2019, the
International Olympic Committee moved the marathon about 805km north of Tokyo
to the city of Sapporo because of concerns about the heat. (Most competitors in
sprinting, however, will embrace the hot weather when those events begin
Friday.)
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