The article, written by Tom Ambrose (2021) and published in the Evening Standard newspaper, reports on the issue of athletes suffering from unbearable heat during the Summer Olympic Games in Tokyo in 2021. The main part of the article tells how a Great Britain team’s runner Jessica Judd, after a 10,000-meter race, collapsed after completing the track. The unbearable heat and humidity left her with complete exhaustion and thirst after 32 minutes of non-stop running. Judd finished 17th, and after she collapsed on the ground, she was not able to stand up on her own until one of her team members brought her water. Moreover, Judd even needed a wheelchair to leave the track, and the runner was sent to recover after a thorough medical checkup. The young athlete and her teammate McColgan admitted that it was almost impossible to run in the 32 degrees of Celsius heat, especially when the humidity level rose to frightening 80 percent.
Still, as the article disclosed, it was not the first occurrence of athletes collapsing due to weather conditions at this year’s Olympics (Ambrose, 2021). It was runners who suffered especially greatly – Masatora Kawano from Japan has also collapsed in the middle of a 50 km race, as well as 20 percent of all the athletes participating in it (Ambrose, 2021). Additionally, a Spain’s tennis player Paula Badosa has had a heatstroke during the first week of the Olympics, due to which the tennis matches schedule had to be readjusted. Ambrose (2021) also reports that this year’s Olympics hold the record for the highest temperature since the beginning of actual records. Thus, the article provides evidence that even healthy and well-trained sportsmen are not immune to heat and humidity, and that in the future, Olympic Games should take weather conditions into serious account.
Reference
Ambrose, T. (2021). British athlete collapses in scorching Tokyo heat. Evening Standard. Web.