Track leader warns of climate effects on sport

Athletics have an uncertain future in the face of the changing climate, with the sport’s president, Sebastian Coe, warning Friday that athletes are already suffering.

Nearly 80% of athletes surveyed by World Athletics said they are seriously concerned about the climate crisis and some 75% said their competition or training has already been affected, Coe said on the eve of the world championships.

In a summer that has seen wildfires raging, record high temperatures across southern Europe and relentless flooding in Asia, the World Athletics president said sports federations cannot rely on governments to avert the climate crisis.

“Constituent groups like sport are going to have to figure this out for themselves,” Coe said, “because I don’t think we can rely on governments to remotely get to grips with what is going to be a massive shift in reality in the next few years.”

Many top-level events have been affected by high heat in recent years. The Tokyo Olympics marathon and race-walking events were moved 500 miles north to Sapporo to avoid a repeat of the 2019 world championships in Doha, where numerous athletes succumbed to the heat and dropped out of distance events. Rising temperatures forced the 10,000 meters to be rescheduled at the Olympic trials in Eugene, Oregon, in 2021.

Coe said scheduling competitions, particularly for endurance events, at times of the year when temperatures are more favorable is a consideration. Holding the 2025 worlds in mid-September in Tokyo will hopefully mean high temperatures are not as big a threat.

“We have a challenge everywhere we look. The welfare of the athletes for me always needs to be primary,” Coe said. “It’s not beyond the wisdom of all of us to figure this out. But this is a challenge that isn’t going to go away.”

Coe, who was elected to a third term as president Thursday, said there is much to accomplish over the next four years — most notably, expanding and modernizing the track schedule in a quest to return the sport to prominence.

“When we talk about making our sport relevant in the lives of young people, we actually mean making it relevant to their lifestyles,” Coe said. “There are lots of things we need to address, and my focus is entirely on doing that.”

Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.