When the summer comes around there are usually a few sporting events that people tend to look forward to: the World Cup, the European Championship and the Summer Olympics. Sadly, they don’t all happen every summer, with each competition instead taking place every four years.
The good news is that the Euros and the World Cup tend to alternate, meaning that those that love a good summer spent watching live football can enjoy something worthwhile every two years. For the Olympics, though, it can still require a wait between them, with the winter Olympics in the mean time. The question is, might climate change put a stop to that too?
The World is Getting Hotter
There are a lot of people out there that would like to deny climate change. In spite of the warnings from experts and the evidence that we have that the world is heating up at an exponential rate, there are many who are happy to stick their fingers in their ears and pretend it isn’t happening.
Sadly for the rest of us, it very much is and the impending disaster is now almost certainly not going to be diverted. What it means in a practical sense is that the world is getting hotter and hotter and that what might previously have been referred to as ‘heat waves’ is now just the norm for the majority of people around the world in the summer.
This is the race we need to win!
Over 50 global @Olympics athletes & Paralympians from Tokyo 2020 have come together to encourage ambitious action from our world leaders to address climate change. pic.twitter.com/zg3D18tNSe
— Carlyle Gordon/#NAFOfella (@lcby) June 12, 2024
As far as the Olympics is concerned, this isn’t good news at all. When an Olympics takes place, there are all sorts of events that happen that ask the competitors to put their bodies through the mill. From running a marathon to skateboarding via beach volleyball and tennis, there are numerous sports that ask their competitors to push themselves to the limit physically.
Whilst some sports can be held indoors and the athletes offered the blessed relief of air conditioning, many cannot. That means that the increasing heat of the planet will stop them from being able to compete at their best, or even from competing at all.
The earth’s temperature rose at an average of 0.06 degrees celsius every decade between 1850, when records began, and 1980. Since 1982, however, that rate has more than trebled, going up to 0.20 degrees celsius per decade.
Since global records began, 2023 was the warmest year on record. The ten warmest years ever recorded were all in the preceding decade. That extra heat on the planet is driving seasonal and regional extremes of temperature, reducing snow cover, increasing rainfall and seeing summers become almost unbearable. All of that is bad news for the Summer Olympics and terrible news for human beings.
Following the World Cup’s Example
In 2022, the World Cup was held in Qatar. Whilst many objected to the Asian country hosting the event because of the country’s appalling human rights record, FIFA were happy to ignore that on account of the fact that the organisation was getting plenty of money for allowing it.
The biggest problem with Qatar as hosts, other than the oppression of minorities and the fact that the country went back on its promise to serve alcohol in stadiums, was the temperature in the country. Qatar’s climate sees temperatures of around 46 degrees centigrade in April rising to a high of 50.4 centigrade in July, on average, which is…hot.
The Lapland town of Salla, the coldest in Finland, put in a request to host the Summer Olympics in 2032 to raise awareness of climate change.
— Amazing facts! (@Factsofw0rld) October 17, 2022
As a result, a decision was taken to move to World Cup from its usual summer slot to winter, with the temperatures seen as a much more reasonable 32.7 degrees centigrade on overage in December and 32.4 centigrade in January. That is still obviously very hot, with Qatar having to find ways to keep the pitches as cool as possible during the matches.
Whilst Qatar is obviously an incredibly hot country, it is entirely possible that the Summer Olympics might have to follow that lead in the future if the temperatures keep rising. There are consequences of climate change that the International Olympic Committee will have to take into account.
It is not out of the realms of the possible that the Winter Olympics might either have to change the way it works or else be abandoned altogether if the temperatures keep rising. For the Summer Olympics, meanwhile, the possibility of moving it to a different time of year is something that will be seriously considered by the IOC’s Future Host Commission.
Having seen how it worked for the World Cup, there will be some thought put into whether or not hosting the Olympics in the summer is the right way forward. It might well depend on which country it is that is applying for hosting duty and how affected by Climate Change it is.
Impact on Other Sports
There is a problem with moving the Summer Olympics to another time of year, which is the manner in which it might have an impact on other sports. Changing when the competition is held isn’t something new.
When Sydney was chosen as the host city in 2000, a decision was taken to move to Olympics to September in order to accommodate the seasonal differences experienced by the southern hemisphere. Yet when that sort of thing happened, it had an impact on the likes of the Premier League and other major football leagues around the world. Many of them begin in August, seen disruption coming as a result.
@cbsnews The 2024 Summer Olympics are just a month away, where athletes are set to face off with the best competitors in the world. But there’s one opponent that has the potential to outshine the performance of everyone – the heat. This year’s Games could break records, and scientists and athletes worldwide are concerned that as temperatures only continue to rise, it could put the health of competitors – and the future of the event as we know it – in jeopardy. #olympics #paris2024 #paris #athletes #athletesoftiktok #health #climatechange #weather
It isn’t just that football is a sport in the Summer Olympics, meaning that some players would have to leave their clubs in order to take part in it, but also that coverage might not be seen by as many people when the biggest games were broadcast from the football season.
Other sports also have their own time of year that they are most commonly played in, but obviously the Summer Olympics is one of the biggest and best shows of sport available. That means that it would dominate and some of the smaller sports might end up not being seen by as many people as usual. This might impact the likes of broadcast money paid for them.