Wildfire Disruptions to the Tour de France Show How Climate Change Is Shaping Sports
Two weeks later, at the start of this year’s Tour de France, the average temperature along the course was 87.4°F—far surpassing the previous record of 78.6°F in 2022.
Climate Change Is Forcing Sports to Adapt
The Tour de France is not the only sporting event that’s been forced to contend with the impact of climate extremes.
“Recent years have been a turning point for sport, just because so many sporting events have been impacted by climate change,” says Madeleine Orr, assistant professor of Sport Ecology at the University of Toronto. In 2020, tennis player Dalila Jakupovic collapsed on court during the Australian Open due to poor air quality because of wildfires. Soon after, the Tokyo Olympics saw athletes sweltering in 90°F temperatures.
Extreme weather has become impossible to ignore—and organizers are being forced to adapt.
For the first time in the history of the World Cup, FIFA began mandating three-minute “hydration breaks” as games across North America carried on amid high temperatures and humidity. The tournament’s final was threatened by hazardous wildfire smoke drifting over New York from hundreds of fires burning in Ontario, Canada, as well as northern Minnesota.
