Record warmth waves threaten the holding of the Tour de France in summer season | Climate and Environment | EUROtoday

The Tour de France is a fortunate and abusive race, repeat, very envious, the organizers of different occasions, who denounce that the biking race par excellence has taken over the month of July, the weeks by which there could also be much less competitors from different sports activities; by which, above all, there isn’t a soccer league, which devours all the things.

If it had not been run in July since its first version, in 1903, the Tour wouldn’t exist. A sports activities newspaper invented it, The Car, who was on the lookout for methods to extend circulation and promoting within the month by which gross sales have been the least, in July exactly, the month by which the canine days are repeated.

More than 120 years later, and nicely into the twenty first century of all local weather crises, the month of July, greater than a fortune, is usually a curse, as world warming advances, unstoppably. Without warmth, nobody would perceive the Tour, the afternoons of sweaty naps on the sofa in entrance of the TV whereas the cyclists open their jerseys and sweat out liters of water and salt that go away, indelible on their garments, the mark of the epic and the struggling that’s so admired, a white fence. But with excessive temperatures, amid more and more frequent warmth waves, the present is at risk. And the well being of the artists, because the danger of warmth stress will increase.

“With heat, performance decreases because when plasma volume decreases with sweating to cool the body, blood flow to the muscles is reduced and the nervous system is also affected, since the brain is startled by the exaggerated perception of effort and decreases its activity to safeguard its energy,” explains Pedro L. Valenzuela, researcher within the Physiology Unit of the University of Alcalá, who 4 years in the past participated in a analysis that concluded that between 10 and 25 levels the vast majority of cyclists attain their highest efficiency values. “We relied on data on mean maximum power (MMP) values ​​from more than 70 professional cyclists over eight years in both training and competition, and observed a deterioration in performance at colder (-18% at 5 degrees) and warmer (-9% at 35 degrees) temperatures. The highest values, in fact, were reached between 10 and 25 degrees.”

Running at best temperatures in July will likely be more and more tough, not solely as a result of efficiency will lower, but additionally as a result of it will likely be harmful to your well being. Running will merely be unattainable in a couple of years. In its protocol for excessive temperatures, the International Cycling Union (UCI) units danger thresholds primarily based on the so-called moist bulb world temperatures (WBGT), a measure that encompasses each ambient temperature and the diploma of humidity, photo voltaic radiation and wind. The orange zone is established between 23 and 27.9 levels Celsius of WBGT: temperatures of average excessive danger, which require measures to assist sweat decrease physique temperature: use of ice vests and gloves taken from the freezer earlier than the stage, parking buses within the shade, socks with ice on the again of the neck throughout the race, fixed hydration, therapy to transform the carbohydrate gels with which they’re nourished throughout the stage into sorbets, winter coaching at altitude in amenities that simulate excessive temperatures dressed from high to backside in painter’s overalls…

“In the short term, extreme heat is not something that is going to put the Tour at risk in general, but I do believe that specific stages are going to be more and more frequent in which the schedule is modified and preventive actions are carried out due to extreme temperatures,” provides Valenzuela, who can also be co-editor of the scientific journal. Fissac. “Who knows if in a few decades the Tour or other tests that take place in summer will not completely change, but what is clear is that it is increasingly common for specific days to reach temperatures that we know are dangerous not only for performance, but also for health. The clearest effect of heat on performance is dehydration and heat stroke, which can lead to a greater risk of cardiac events. And that sometimes, in efforts of several hours at high intensity, is difficult to mitigate even with the adequate hydration or ice on the back of the neck.”

If it reaches 28 degrees, it enters the red zone, which implies modifying the schedule of the stages, seeking the coolness of dawn or dusk, avoiding the period of maximum heat and sunshine, between 1 and 5 p.m.; the neutralization of long climbs in which the cyclist’s speed decreases, especially on slopes with little vegetation, and even the neutralization of the stage.

“The increase in heat will be a problem, of course, but we must also integrate into the equation the wind generated by the cyclist when penetrating the air mass at 45 kilometers per hour, which produces more dissipation,” emphasizes physiologist Ricardo Mora. “That would increase the margin up to 30 degrees WBG, although in specialties such as the marathon, where the speed is around 20 kilometers per hour, or walking, at 10-12, and generate less wind, the danger threshold will be lower.”

The 28 degrees of the UCI red zone have been exceeded in the month of July during the last decade in Paris, Nimes, Bordeaux, Toulouse and Pau, cities in which the Tour is very common, according to a study published in Scientific Reports, which has analyzed climatic data associated with more than 50 editions of the French race. The research has been led by the French National Research Institute for Sustainable Development (IRD) within the framework of the European TipESM project and has had the collaboration of, among other institutions, the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) and the Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal), a center promoted by Fundación la Caixa.

However, until now the red zone protocol has not had to be applied: fortunately, the hottest episodes occurred either before or after the Tour arrived in those cities, never during a stage. Ironically, a large number of episodes were produced in July 2020, the year in which, due to the pandemic, the large loop It was played in September, the month in which it is possible that it will end up being played in the future.

“In our analysis we observed that the city of Paris, where the Tour always ends, has exceeded the high risk threshold for heat on five occasions in July, four of them since 2014. Other cities analyzed have also recorded many days of extreme heat in July, but, fortunately, never coinciding with the date of a stage of the Tour de France,” explains Ivana Cvijanovic, IRD researcher and first author of the study. “In some ways we can say it is an extremely lucky race, but with record heat waves becoming more frequent, it seems only a matter of time before the Tour faces days of extreme thermal stress that will test current safety protocols.” On the contrary, classic locations for mountain stages, such as Tourmalet or Alpe d’Huez, have historically remained within the low and moderate risk thresholds for thermal stress, with no episodes of extreme heat having been recorded.

Meanwhile, the groups, oblivious to the explanations for warming, shocked by actuality, proceed to welcome sponsorship from corporations linked to fossil fuels reminiscent of TotalEnergies, Ineos or Uno-X and from international locations reminiscent of Bahrain or the United Arab Emirates whose financial system relies on oil or pure fuel. Sportwashing and carbon. And the Vuelta, which runs in August, chooses Andalusia for greater than half of the levels in 2026.