Dealing with the heat, humidity and midnight starts in Doha

On top of the midnight start, conditions for the women's marathon on the opening day of the IAAF World Athletics Championships Doha 2019 will be tough, with expected temperatures of around 30-40 degrees Celsius and 80% humidity.

With the men and women’s Marathon and both 20km Race Walks taking place outside the air-conditioned Khalifa International Stadium, Athletics Australia’s National Physiologist, Ned Brophy-Williams, has been working with athletes so they are best placed to deal with the extreme heat, humidity and unusual start time.

“We are going to have some really challenging conditions out here,” said Brophy-Williams. “We’ve not had not much wind at night over the last week and the heat and humidity is really going to take it out of them, so the better we can prepare them for it the better we are going to perform.

“We’ve been attacking this challenge in a whole range of different ways for a significant number of months already. We went to Cairns for one of our holding camps to help with acclimatisation and we’ve been using heat tents, hot spas, steam rooms and saunas. And then for the race itself we have several strategies in place to help them stay cool, from ice jackets ahead of the race to ice towels and ice-drinks to lower core temperature prior to the start.”

It’s not just the heat and humidity that will create unique issues over the 26.2 mile and 20km races, but the near midnight start times will also throw up serious challenges for the endurance athletes.

“The marathon is a very intuitive type of event where you need to be aware of how much you have left to give at any given time,” he added. “Even just the perception of running at night, be it the altered lighting or the disturbance to your usual training routine, it can alter how you perceive your body’s response, so we’ve had the athletes out training at similar times to the competition to prepare for this.”

The Marathons and 20km Race Walks will be broadcast live and exclusively on Eurosport Australia (Foxtel).

Friday 27 September, 23:59 (06:59 AEST)

Women’s Marathon – Rochelle Rodgers

Sunday 29 September, 23:30 (06:30 AEST)

Women’s 20km Race Walk – Katie Hayward (pictured), Jemima Montag (pictured)

Friday 4 October, 23:30 (06:30 AEST)

Men’s 20km Race Walk – Dane Bird-Smith, Rhydian Cowley

Saturday 5 October, 23:59 (06:59 AEST)

Men’s Marathon – Julian Spence