Risk of thermal replace world marathons and racing walks to start earlier

Marathons and 35 -kilometer walks in World Athletics Championships in Tokyo will start half an hour earlier due to health threats that create unjustified heat, they gave on Thursday.

Racing walks on energy -saving races are to open the championship on Saturday morning, with a woman’s marathon on Sunday and men on Monday.

This week, temperatures were up to 33 ° C, and when the heat wave is continued until next week, the organizers were forced to move the road race 7:30 in the morning.

“Due to the expected increased thermal conditions, which could pose a threat to health and safety for competing athletes, all road events in the first three days … will start 30 minutes earlier than planned,” said the joint statement of the organizers and the world athletics.

“The start time of road events was originally established at 08:00 in considering climatic conditions, operational aspects and maximizing viewers’ attendance.”

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

Marathon and racing events for a walk on the Pandemic Olympic Games in Tokyo 2021, which took place from July 23 to August 8, were transferred to the cooler northern city of Sapporo due to thermal problems.

However, this time they remained in Tokyo, where the temperatures in mid -September “remained at temperatures in mid -summer.”

“(Decision) was given to athletes as soon as possible to enable them to prepare and adapt to the new start time.”

Fears of the heat in Doha at the 2019 World Championships meant that the marathons began at midnight with walks half an hour earlier.

The average temperature of Japan from June to August was 2.36 ° C above the “standard value”, which makes it the hottest summer since the beginning of the records in 1898, said Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA).

The agency noticed that it was the third in a row of summer record high temperatures.

Coe said that after the Tuesday meeting of the World Athletics Council, the future risk of global warming was discussed.

“These are not temporary, they are here to stay here,” he said.

“The governments have not come to the plate, and sport will have to make unilateral judgments and decisions here.

“And in the past we thought about, if we are involved in the well -being of athletes, we should probably be openly involved,” he added.

Time competitors in the stage more in each of the first three days remain unchanged.