The risks of heat force the marathons of the world and the racial walks to start earlier

Marathons and 35 km racing walks at the world athletics championships in Tokyo will start half an hour earlier due to health risks posed by unusually hot weather, organizers announced on Thursday.

Energy race walks should open the championships on Saturday morning, with the female marathon on Sunday and men on Monday.

Temperatures have reached 33 ° C this week and, with the heat waves that continue in next week, the organizers were forced to move the road race at 7:30 am.

“Due to the expected high heat conditions that may have a health and safety risk for athletes in competition, all road events the first three days … begin 30 minutes earlier than expected,” said a joint declaration by organizers and world athletics.

“The start of road events had been initially set at 08:00 in consideration of climatic conditions, operational aspects and maximizing spectators attendance.”

The head of world athletics, Sebastian Coe, admitted to Tokyo on Tuesday that high temperatures would be a problem for athletes.

The events of marathon and race in race at the Tokyo Olympic Games behind the pandemic, which took place from July 23 to August 8, were transferred to the cooler city in the north of Sapporo due to heat problems.

However, this time, they stayed in Tokyo where temperatures in mid-September “remained at those in the middle of summer,” noted the declaration.

“(The decision) was communicated to athletes as soon as possible to allow them to prepare and adapt to the new start time.”

The fears of heat in Doha at the 2019 world championships led the marathons from midnight with the walks half an hour earlier.

The average temperature of Japan between June and August was 2.36 ° C above “the standard value”, which makes it the warmest summer since the start of the files in 1898, said the Japanese meteorological agency (JMA).

It was the third consecutive summer of record temperatures, the agency noted.

COE said that after Tuesday meeting of the World Athletics Council, the future risks of global warming had been discussed.

“It’s not transient, they are there to stay,” he said.

“Governments have not intervened on the plate and sport will have to make judgments and unilateral decisions here.

“And we have reflected in the past, if we are engaging in the well-being of athletes, then we should probably get started openly,” he added.

The hours of the start of competition in the stadium on each of the first three days remain unchanged.