World Athletics president Sebastian Coe has admitted that athletes competing at the 2025 World Championships in Tokyo will face significant “heat challenges.”
The nine-day championship, featuring the world’s biggest track and field stars, begins on Saturday in the Japanese capital.
The opening day will stage the men’s and women’s 35km race walk, with temperatures forecast to reach 32°C.
Japan has recorded its hottest summer since records began in 1898, with average temperatures rising 2.36°C above normal.
Coe acknowledged the concerns, stating: “I don’t think it’s any great secret, we do have some heat challenges in Tokyo.”
“We had them actually at the time of the Games in 2021.”
Unlike during the pandemic-delayed Olympic Games four years ago, the marathon and race walk events will remain in Tokyo.
In 2021, both were relocated to the cooler northern city of Sapporo due to extreme weather concerns.
To mitigate the heat this time, race walks are scheduled to start at 8:00 a.m. local time.
British 800m Olympic silver medallist Keely Hodgkinson highlighted the conditions in an Instagram post on Tuesday.
He shared a photo from her training base in Japan with the caption: “Hot out here.”
Beyond the competition, Coe linked the issue to broader climate change challenges.
He sayed sports bodies are being forced to take action where governments have failed.
“Governments have not stepped up to the plate, and sport is going to have to take some unilateral judgments and decisions here,” Coe said.
“If we are committed to athlete welfare, then we should probably be openly committed to that.”
