Measurement of climatic heat stress at outdoor venues for endurance events at the Atlanta Olympic Games, 1996

Abstract

During the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games, climatic heat stress measurements were made at four sport venues: athletics, beach volleyball, modern pentathlon, and tennis. The known potentially adverse effects of climatic heat stress (high temperature, humidity, and radiant energy) on athletic performance, coupled with Atlanta's history of abnormally hot humid weather during the proposed Games period, indicated the need for such documentation as part of ongoing Games preparation. Commercially available instrumentation was used to measure dry bulb temperature (DBT), wet bulb temperature (WBT), and black bulb globe temperature (BGT). From these values, the Heat Stress Index (HSI) temperature was calculated. Data were collected at 10‐min intervals for an extended time period at various competition sites at a time when athletes were competing during the Games. These data provide a perspective on: how Atlanta's 1996 weather compared with preceding years, and with that of Barcelona in 1992; the incidence of heat stres...