IN THE past, it was ideal for keeping the celebratory champagne chilled or soothing swollen limbs. Now, Britain's athletes will be pinning their hopes on ice in a bid for Olympic success.
With temperatures in Beijing set to soar into the 30s and humidity levels reaching more than 70 per cent, Team Britain risks overheating and compromising their performance.
To combat this, competitors will don ice vests before their event
s and while training, it was revealed yesterday.
The move comes after consulting experts in desert and jungle warfare, as well as leading sports scientists, which has helped the British Olympic Association (BOA) and funding body UK Sport to put together a strategy – tailored to each individual athlete – to help them stay cool.
It follows Paula Radcliffe's disastrous performance in Athens four years ago when dehydration saw her fail to finish the marathon. Ice vests have already been used in sports such as cricket.
Professor Michael Tipton, a physiologist at Portsmouth University and an expert on thermoregulation, explained the vests are designed to keep the body as close to its normal temperature as possible. "What we are trying to do is get it back to that once the athlete has either been warming up or is waiting in between events."
Prof Tipton added that while heat can be a problem, it is the humidity that impairs athletes' performance by affecting the ability to sweat. "Ice vests are a way of assisting the body by helping it use less of its own resources to lower its temperature, therefore dehydration becomes less of a problem," he said. "Also, heat and humidity has a fundamental effect on a person's motivation to run or exert themselves."
Sports science and the emergence of equipment designed to optimise performance will be much more visible during the Beijing Olympics than at any previous games, he added.
Dr Stuart Galloway, an expert in sports physiology at Stirling University, said the science of cooling was pioneered in Australia. "It was first used by their rowers to cool down, but it is something that has taken off across sports. It's about getting the body to its optimum temperature so it can perform at its best."
But he added: "Surprisingly, research has shown that even without access to this sort of technology, athletes are capable of coping with high temperatures very well."
Dr Scott Drawer, UK Sport's research and innovation consultant, said the BOA's strategy had come about after wide consultation with experts but added that revealing too much detail would give rivals an edge.
He said: "We have consulted experts from the aerospace industry and the military, and have learned a lot from what they have done for troops in extreme environments. Pre-cooling is one method, but other measures we are not publicising."
Dr Drawer and Dr Marco Cardinale, the BOA's head of sports science and research, have also focused on minimising the effects of travel. The choice of Macau for the training camp was to limit jet lag and enable acclimatisation. Dr Cardinale said: "In the last couple of years, we have been able to use test events in China as opportunities to experience the conditions first-hand and check on the effectiveness of our strategies.
"We are confident that all athletes in a British vest will have had the best possible support and preparation, with nothing left to chance."
Secrets of the hi-tech training roomIN ADDITION to "pre-cooling" through ice vests, other strategies are being adopted to help regulate athletes' body temperatures.
One approach will see competitors using "artificial sweats", imitating the body's perspiration system, by soaking or refrigerating their clothes before an event.
In theory, this will work by reducing the strain on the body to overcome excessive humidity in order to sweat properly.
But even simple solutions, such as placing athletes' hands in cold water or using fans, can help to pull body temperatures back to normal.
A more sophisticated approach adopted by the British Olympic team to help them acclimatise before going to the Games has included the use of an environmental chamber that simulates the Chinese capital's stifling temperatures and humidity.
The seven-metre-square room, filled with exercise machines, is the largest non-military chamber of its kind in Britain and unique in that it can simulate different temperatures and humidity as well as altitude.
However, the team has refused to divulge all the secrets or even say which of its athletes will be using which technique, claiming that to do so would be to give a competitive advantage to the opposition.
The full article contains 769 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
