Double disqualification after heat shortens Olympic triathlon test event

Half the distance? They should make it an sixteenth!

what a farce, why didnt they reschedule the olympics like they did in 1964

Better change it to October. 1964 Tokyo Olympics was in nice October. It was cool blue sky and no typhoon during game days.

This Test does not bode well for the actual race.

May I ask if stores along the route had their A/C on full with the doors open?

Learmonth and Taylor Brown held hands as they crossed the line.

so they won but holding hands a huge No No, what happened to sportsmanship?

They understand the commitment needed to complete a gruelling event. Do the officials?

why didnt they reschedule the olympics like they did in 1964

US doesn't want games in September or October and US sponsors paid a lot of money to IOC, then it decided August for US.

Some classic jobsworth application of the rules here in a meaningless event. Was it made by someone wearing a blazer?

This is also from a sport that got its widest and most positive ever coverage when a top runner carried his collapsed brother over the line.

kwatt is right. The JOC originally proposed holding the games in late Sept to Oct, however European and US sponsors didn’t want the olympics to overlap with professional league sports broadcasts.

kwatt is right. The JOC originally proposed holding the games in late Sept to Oct, however European and US sponsors didn’t want the olympics to overlap with professional league sports broadcasts.

But the Olympics is only 2 weeks - it will compete with the 9-month Premier League for just a couple of weeks.

It is absurd - holding the events in these conditions is dangerous, especially for the endurance events. If they will not move the time, then they should re-consider the location, with plenty of Hokkaido having perfectly clement weather at this time of year.

GB will shortly be deciding the Tokyo places in Lausanne, I hope the selectors have the common sense to ignore this result. It was a 'test run' after all.

Who knows a big typhoon like this year might hit Tokyo in 2020?

A farce.

IOC knows Japan's August is the hottest month of the year. Games should not be held under such condition. Athletes may die of heatstroke. It seems to me IOC and sponsors do not care about athletes' health.

organizers had earlier halved the distance of the running section to five kilometers because of concerns over the extreme heat.

[...]

ITU regulations state that the swimming segment must be shortened or cancelled if the water temperature is above 30.9 degrees Celsius but the highest water temperature measured on Thursday was 30.3.

Let just train triathlete to every possible combination just in case.

The sunrise is around 5, the civil twilight around 4:30 - there is far enough light to start any endurance event between 5:30 and 6:00.

Is Cecilia Perez ok ?

It seems to me IOC and sponsors do not care about athletes' health.

It seems Japan's Olympic bid organizers are the ones who don't care about athletes' health. Why did they push so hard to host the summer Games, and why were so excited when winning the bid?

kwatt: "It seems to me IOC and sponsors do not care about athletes' health."

I asked this yesterday, and you guys seem unable to answer the question: WHO decided on the date? There was pressure from foreign media (and domestic), sure, but it was the JOC who chose the date, ultimately, and you would think even a braindead moron here would know that it was a horrible choice -- but they have Mori as head of the JOC, and he's beyond braindead. Let's see that fat idiot run in the summer heat instead of sitting in AC and calling athletes like Asada Mao shameful because they didn't win a gold for Japan.

Test event means like practice event. How can you be disqualified from practice?

@smith

Was it really the JOC, and not the IOC, who decided the dates?

I know the JOC drew up the detailed schedule, but weren’t the start and end dates imposed from Switzerland?

I genuinely don’t know....

There is such a thing as a pool water cooler.

Why Japan has never considered it is a mystery.

In such a competition, in sweltering weather, to bring down pool water temps

it might become a necessity.

Well done to the participants who gave it their all.

Ignore the armchair experts and begrudgers.

When Japan was awarded the Olympics a few years ago I said they should be in October like in 1964. I got nothing but flack, people saying I was being negative. Well to you people, "I told you"! All my Japanese friends say, Olympics in July-August stupid stupid stupid.

Watching athletes collapse is not really what the Olympics is about....

Was it really the JOC, and not the IOC, who decided the dates?

I heard JOC proposed Olympics in fall October and September first because autumn weather is much cooler and nicer than others, 1964 Tokyo Olympics was held in October, but this schedule was rejected by IOC. US says they don't want Olympic games in October. US is the biggest sponsors and paid a lot of money to IOC. It seems IOC decided the month of August finally.

Two big heatwaves in two years in Japan, July last year and this year in August. Japan is hot to start with of course, but heatwaves still make it much worse.

To summarize, I think we're left praying for no heatwave during the Olympics. If the average temp is 2-3C above average like this year, scheduling events in the morning makes little to no difference. I hope its just an anomaly of this heatwave, but my town has had five of the top ten highest daily lows, i.e., highest overnight August temps, in fifty years of records. I've noticed my house not cooling down very much overnight this year. Its been very sunny, about 50% above average, so I can't blame it on cloud cover trapping heat.

@kwatt

Thanks for the info. Makes sense. It’s hard to believe that a committee of Japanese people would choose to hold the games during the worst part of the year.

As ever, money talks....