Danger when the heat is on

Pietri had collapsed close to the end of the marathon at the 1908 Olympics in London, being helped across the line, then disqualified. In the 1954 Empire Games in Vancouver Peters collapsed many times, crawling towards the line, but was hospitalised before reaching the end.

What these races had in common was searing heat, but nothing like the conditions that will prevail in Atlanta, conditions that have prompted serious concern over the potential for tragedy.

Ron Maughan has spent the past three years attempting to ensure that Britain's competitors are the best prepared in Atlanta. Hence his presence for the third succcessive summer at the British Olympic Association's acclimatisation camp here.

Maughan has been chairman of the BOA nutrition steering group for three years and is their adviser on acclimatisation for the Games.

In his real existence, he is professor of physiology at Aberdeen University Medical School, an academic with the rare gift of being able to explain complex theory in simple language to journalists as well as to sports people.

``It's not just endurance competitors whose performance is affected by climatic conditions,'' he warns. ``If the body is overheated, all performance suffers.

``Even road rage and riots have been shown to be heat-related, and none of these dramatic sporting collapses has happened in cool conditions - only heat. And because they generate heat faster, and cannot lose it fast enough, 10,000 metre runners may suffer even more spectacularly than marathon runners.''

A recent laboratory study on a bicycle ergometer showed that a level of intensity of effort that could be sustained for 92 minutes at 10 degrees centigrade was reduced to 83 minutes when the temperature was raised to 20C, and to just 51 minutes when hiked to 30C.

The average maximum daily figure for Atlanta is 31C with humidity averaging 69%. But at times, says Maughan, the temperature could top 39C (103 Fahrenheit) with 100% humidity.

Maughan cites another controlled experiment in which 1500m runners were 3.7% slower after having been dehydrated by just 2% of their body weight prior to racing. At world class 1500m pace, this represents six seconds.

He has made these findings equally clear to those who will compete during the forthcoming Centennial Games, issuing detailed warnings and instructions.

He seems to have left no stone unturned in his research.

``The US and Israeli armies have done more research than anybody else about the effects of heat on human performance,'' Maughan says.

An 11-stone sedentary person in the United Kingdom might lose up to three litres of fluid from all sources per day.

In hard exercise, sweat rates typically reach two litres per hour.

In Atlanta, however, someone taking no exercise would need up to six litres daily.

Add training or sporting competition and the requirement goes up to as much as 15 litres per day.

The concern, of course, is that there are few more motivated creatures on earth than the elite competitive sportsman or woman. Witness Tommy Simpson's words, moments before he died on the Tour de France: ``Put me back on the bike.''

The thing that strikes you most as you walk around the Olympic Village is the ferocious determination and aggression of the competitors. ``The danger,'' says Maughan, ``is when the body tells you: if you run another 100m you will drop, but the mind says: sod it, I'm not stopping.

``Yes, there are concerns - not fears - but the procedures we have put in place over the past three years, the visits that the competitors have made here, mean the individuals have been well educated about the risks and precautions. But they are difficult to practise back home.''