Australia Weather News

Sweltering conditions could pose a threat to both athletes and spectators at the 2020 Olympic Games in Japan, according to Australian team officials, who are already warning athletes to prepare for extreme heat at the Tokyo event.

In July, Japan experienced a record-breaking heatwave, with the mercury soaring above 40 degrees Celsius in parts of the country, killing 30 people and hospitalising thousands.

The host city is taking steps to try to keep athletes and spectators safe during the Olympics, including moving the marathon event earlier in the morning to avoid scorching temperatures and introducing "mist spraying technology" to try to cool down the pavement.

Australian Olympic medical director Dr David Hughes said every host city faced its share of challenges in the lead-up to the event and for Tokyo, the heat could be one of the biggest issues.

"In Beijing it was hot and polluted, in Rio we had the Zika virus and dirty water, and Tokyo is going to be I think clean and very well organised, but there's no doubt it's going to be hot," Dr Hughes said.

"A strong recommendation of ours and the ideal situation would be that all athletes going into Tokyo get two weeks of acclimatisation in temperatures which would replicate those that they're going to experience in Tokyo.

"We know that with acclimatisation this leads to improved performance in the heat, it leads to decreased physiological strain, increased blood supply to the skin, increased sweat rates and a decreased perception of heat distress from the athlete."

Tokyo may be the hottest Games

Chris Szubski, from Sportify Cities, has crunched the data to analyse how Tokyo will compare with other previous Olympic Games when it came to heat.

He said humidity was going to be a major factor.

"The temperature range [during the Games] will most likely be 30 to 35 degrees, but that's just the air temperature and looking at the humidity factor is a completely different situation," Mr Szubski said.

"The humidity is usually about 55 to 60 per cent in the daytime so that would mean the perceived or 'feels like' temperature could be 45 degrees.

"If you compare the 'feels like' temperature across Olympic Games back to 1984, it looks like Tokyo will be the hottest."

Dealing with change from winter to summer

Australian cyclist Matthew Glaetzer has spent the last five months training and competing in Tokyo and will head back to Japan for another stint in the lead-up to the games.

"It [the heat] can take a toll on you — it just feels a bit draining," Glaetzer said.

"Competing is fine — it's actually really good for us to compete in the humidity it's just recovery and preparing for the racing that we need to manage well.

"We're going to be in winter while they're in summer, so we're going to have to get the heat experience going in training sessions.

"We are having heating installed at the track as a nice upgrade so that's going to really help us get used to performing in the heat regularly.

"Australia's a hot place isn't it? So we're going to manage it okay — it's just the change from winter to summer — that's the main challenge we need to deal with."

Spectators a concern as well

Dr Hughes said officials would need to manage the heat not only for athletes, but spectators as well.

"In some ways the people I'm more concerned about during hot sporting events are the people sitting up in the stands who are not particularly fit," Dr Hughes said.

"Maybe they've come from other parts of the world and just flown in for events, so they may have come from very cold conditions into hot conditions and I think there's a real threat to those individuals."