Athletics chief Sebastian Coe admits ‘heat challenges’ at Tokyo world championships

TOKYO – World Athletics president Sebastian Coe has admitted that the world championships starting in Tokyo this weekend faces “heat challenges”, after

Japan sweltered through its hottest summer on record.

The country’s average temperature from June to August was 2.36 deg C above “the standard value”, making it the hottest since records began in 1898, the Japan Meteorological Agency has said.

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

The World Championships begin in Tokyo on Sept 13, four years after the pandemic-delayed Olympics were held in the Japanese capital in 2021.

Coe told reporters that temperatures would be an issue for the athletes.

“I don’t think it’s any great secret, we do have some heat challenges in Tokyo,” he said on Sept 9, when the mercury hit 33 deg C. “We had them actually at the time of the Games in 2021.”

Marathon and race walk events at the Tokyo Olympics were moved to the cooler northern city of Sapporo because of heat concerns. The Games’ athletics programme took place from July 30 to Aug 8, 2021. 

Both events are set to stay in Tokyo for the World Athletics Championships.

Coe said after a meeting of the World Athletics Council that the sport’s leaders were discussing the future risks of global warming.

“These are not transient, they’re here to stay,” he said.

“Governments have not stepped up to the plate and sport is going to have to take some unilateral judgments and decisions here.

“And we have reflected in the past, if we are committed to athlete welfare, then we should probably be openly committed to that.”

Coe also believes that World Athletics is better equipped to deal with the challenges of global warming than other sporting bodies.

“I’m very proud to be able to say with full justification that we have the most accomplished and the most capable health and science team in any international sport, and frankly any sporting organisation,” he said.

Apart from climate issues, Coe also said that more than 95 per cent of female athletes have completed mandatory gene testing ahead of the world championships, with France and Norway set to finalise theirs in Japan.

The test, introduced in March and implemented for the first time at the world championships, is designed to verify biological sex by detecting the presence of the SRY gene – or sex-determining region Y gene – on the Y chromosome.

“I have to say this has been a successful whole-sport response to a principle that we all fundamentally believe in, which is to protect, preserve and promote the female category,” Coe said.

The testing process was not entirely smooth as Canadian athletes scrambled to retake tests after learning that the ones they initially underwent did not comply with the ruling body’s requirements.

French athletes, and athletes of other nationalities training in France, are undergoing theirs in Tokyo because the one-off tests are illegal in France.

Coe was asked whether World Athletics had received any complaints about athlete privacy.

The gender test rule has impacted boxing, with French female athletes barred from the inaugural World Boxing Championships in Liverpool after failing to meet the testing deadline.

Algerian boxer Imane Khelif, who won gold at the 2024 Paris Olympics, has appealed to the Court of Arbitration for Sport over World Boxing’s decision to bar her from future events, unless she undergoes genetic sex testing.

World Boxing president Boris van der Vorst had apologised after naming Khelif publicly in the announcement about mandatory testing, acknowledging that her privacy should have been respected.

“I’m actually comforted that thus far, we haven’t (had privacy complaints), and I think it’s because of the very nature and clarity around the testing and the processes,” Coe said.

“Our medical delegate is the only one that will see the test and if there is anything to be followed up on, they will follow it up directly with the athlete.” AFP, REUTERS