EIS Heat & Humidity Briefings
With the Tokyo 2020 Olympic and Paralympic Games approaching ever closer, the English Institute of Sport (EIS) is implementing a strategy to ensure that support staff are prepared for the conditions that they will face. They are working in collaboration with British Olympic Association (BOA) and British Paralympic Association (BPA) in an attempt to have touch points with everyone heading out to the Games in Japan this summer.
The heat and humidity will be the one of the main challenges for the contingent heading out to Tokyo this summer.
And Laura Needham, Co-Head of Physiology and Senior Physiologist for British Triathlon at the EIS, knows how vital it is that the team around the athletes is also equipped to deal with the conditions.
“The heat and humidity has been on everybody’s agenda and as support staff we automatically think about the athletes and how we can support them,” Needham said.
“We’re trying to support and prepare our athletes to be the best in the world so that they can perform at the Games and a part of their journey is the people around them.
“In the challenging environment we are heading into in Tokyo, we need to look after ourselves as well as we looking after our athletes. We identified a risk on individuals ability to decision make and thermoregulate – they’re all affected by the heat.
“We planned to address the support staff health and performance three years ago, but we knew it would be the last phase to implement. First, it’s about getting people planning for the athletes and then people switch on the closer it gets to the Games in terms of themselves.”
Trying to spread awareness about the dangers of heat stress so that everyone can recognise signs and symptoms is vital, but the process of educating so many members of staff across different sports and disciplines has been quite the challenge.
However, Needham has used experiences from those who have worked in similar environments, as well as games to try and get the message across.
“It’s a challenge to spread awareness because there’s a lot of people you need to touch base with across a lot of different sports, all across the world at training camps and competitions at any given time” Needham added.
“There’s not a central base within the UK so you’ve got staff everywhere and then there’s a lot of people involved from operational to performance leads, practitioners and coaches.
“People don’t want to be told what to do. If you hear someone’s story and if their inability to do their job is impacted on someone, and that someone is a trusted team member of an athlete then that hits home a lot more.
“At the EIS National Conference, we did a session with staff where we made sure it was really practical. We played games e.g. memory challenges and seeing how many squats can be done in teams, but racked up the temperature in the room.
“Everyone was talking about how hot the room was and it wasn’t anywhere near what it will be in Tokyo. It was a fun way to instil those messages and get people thinking about it.
“Luke Gupta, a Senior Project Physiologist at the EIS, did a session to the BOA’s media officer cohort because media officers can be the first people to see the athletes after their events, so recognising the signs and symptoms of heat stress is vital.
“I’ve presented to team leaders at the BOA with my experiences of Tokyo last summer with Triathlon at our Test Event, we’ll be doing another presentation in May with more core staff, who are not embedded in sport, and in the next few months we’ll present to the BPA core staff.
“The big thing about it is looking out for each other and that’s really important in a high-pressured environment.”