Athletes’ performance impacted by global warming: Messi, Ronaldo, and Haaland react.
Global warming is set to have a profound impact on the world of sports, according to a new study conducted in the United States. The study, which examined the link between the performance of professional athletes and climate change, found that short and stocky football players like Lionel Messi are set to be surpassed by taller and leaner athletes like Erling Haaland due to the effects of global warming. It also found that weak tennis players like Andy Murray are likely to be more successful in sports where the weather is warmer.
The study examined 173 athletes who have performed in a variety of fields over the past two decades. It found that men with taller and longer limbs, such as Cristiano Ronaldo and Erling Haaland, are faster when temperatures are higher, while shorter and stockier men like Lionel Messi perform better when the weather is cold. The study also showed that people are more stocky in colder regions, like polar bears, and their performance improves when they are weaker, like grizzly bears, in warmer places.
Tall, thin men move about 2.5 percent faster when temperatures are higher than short, stocky men, according to the study’s author, Professor Ryan Calsbeek of Dartmouth University in the US. This is because taller men have a larger surface area, so they can dissipate heat from more skin and produce more sweat to cool off. However, the study found that female athletes also appeared to run faster in hot weather when they had longer legs, but the difference was not as high as in men because women produce less sweat than men.
The study also found that from 1973 to 2014, football players became taller and leaner, suggesting that the muscles and strength of players like Alan Shearer have been replaced by the slender, slender bodies of players like Harry Kane and Marcus Rashford.
“These results definitely show that a weaker tennis player like Andy Murray can outperform Wimbledon in the hotter US Open, or that a cyclist like Chris Froome can do well if he wants to run marathons in hot countries,” Calsbeek said.
While the scientists compared the performance of athletes in extremely hot places like Hawaii and South Africa and colder countries like Finland and Canada, the study compared the athletes’ recorded heights with their leg and arm lengths measured digitally from race photos.
The study’s findings raise important questions about the future of sports and suggest that athletes may need to adapt to the changing climate if they want to perform at their best.
