Olympians to Use High-Tech to Beat Heat
June 2, 2004 — -- It will be hot — hot enough that most locals will have cleared town for cooler havens. But because athletes competing at the 2004 Olympics have no choice but to stay in the sweltering weather, many plan to turn to science to stay cool.
Some will wear vests filled with chilled gel, others will dunk their hands in icewater just before competing and nearly all will be wearing fabrics designed with hot weather in mind.
"Normally we warm up before exercise," said Gordon Sleivert, director of sports science and medicine at the Canadian Sport Center in Victoria, British Columbia. "But in this case we're taking the warm out of warm up. It's like pre-cooling."
Battling heat this summer in Athens could prove as critical a focus as beating record times.
Meteorologists are predicting the average high this August in Athens will be 90 degrees Fahrenheit, with temperatures often reaching above 100 (the average temperature in Sidney for the 2000 summer games was 64).
Humidity will also be a factor, averaging at 41 percent. Although some events, such as the marathon, will start early (7 a.m.) to avoid hot weather, other competitors will be pushing their limits during peak temperatures.
In hot weather, more blood is sent to the skin for cooling so less blood flows to your muscles. This means the heart must beat faster to keep up the pace. By some estimates, as much as 75 percent of the body's energy is used to regulate heat when temperatures peak and only 25 percent to power muscles.
Drinking lots of water will help athletes maintain their cool, but humidity remains a problem. The body's ability to cool down is impaired by damp air since sweat drips off the skin rather than evaporates, resulting in dehydration without the cooling.
"When the air temperature is hotter than the skin temperature, our ability to dissipate heat from the body is impaired," said Sleivert. "Getting hot is a real problem because when our brain heats up, the brain waves are more like when you're really sleepy. … Everything feels harder."
Enter technology.
John Surie, president of the U.S. branch of Arctic Heat, has been shipping out his company's version of cool by the crateful to U.S. teams, including the rowing team, swimming team (which will be competing in an open-air pool that's exposed to the blazing sun), triathletes, and canoe and kayak team. The Arctic Heat vest is one of a variety of cooling vests models designed with athletes in mind.
The $175 zip-up vest is filled with a nontoxic gel that maintains its temperature for a long period of time. The idea is to chill the vest before use, wear it during warm-up to keep the body temperature down and shed it just before competition (rules prohibit athletes from wearing them during competition).
"The cooling vest is as high-tech as we will be getting," said Brian Pearsons, spokesman for the U.S. canoe and kayak team.
Sleivert says his company, PacificSport, has developed a similar garment called the Thermal Blazer, that Canadian teams will don before competition.
But not everyone is sold on the concept.
Members of the Scottish Sprint Cycling team, for example, have argued the technology constricts the body's blood vessels and is counterproductive. Their trick to staying cool? Plunging their hands in a bucket of ice water to cool the blood.
Clothing companies, meanwhile, have developed a variety of fabrics to beat the heat. Adidas ClimaCool technology uses so-called micro ventilation in its fabric to pull sweat across the surface and through the clothing and incorporates conductive tape in key areas to dissipate heat.
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