The heat wave which is taking hold in France is also hitting the riders of the Tour de France, subjected to intense efforts and extreme temperatures. How do they stand this heat? Thanks to the preparation, but also to sometimes surprising tools.
It was at the foot of Alpe d’Huez on Thursday that the runners, until then rather protected by the coolness of the peaks, were caught up head-on by suffocating heat. “It was horrible, a furnace, there are many runners who had trouble recovering from it”, reported Thibaut Pinot, crimson as he arrived from the summit. Romain Bardet also has “got hot” with “chills and the pulse that tapped in the temple”.
However, the mercury must rise again for the rest of this Tour de France. The peloton has gone back down to the plain to set sail this weekend for the South-West, where the mercury will approach 40°C. “There are those who may have problems. When you flirt with 38, 40 degrees, there may be failures”warns Jacky Maillot, doctor for the Groupama-FDJ team and the France team.
To combat these extreme temperatures, the organizers can sprinkle the roadsallow more supplies, or even shorten a stage, as in June at the Tour d’Occitanie.
Cooling vest and temperature recording capsule
The runners, themselves, adapt different stratagems. Upon arrival at the Super Planche des Belles Filles, Briton Adam Yates was seen immersing himself, shirtless, in a white inflatable bathtub filled with ice cubes. “It looks a bit ridiculous but it works”, underlines Rod Ellingworth, one of the directors of the Ineos team. others put on cooling vests until the start of the stage.
The preparation is also done upstream. Groupama-FDJ climber David Gaudu has “do a lot of sauna before the Tour de France”. Some use “thermo rooms”, a rather high-sounding name, but which “can be done in a traditional way: we turn up the heating in the room before riding on a home-trainer”, explains Samuel Bellenoue, performance manager at Cofidis. Many runners also leave “acclimatize to the heat by participating in races in Australia, Oman or Qatar”adds Jacky Maillot.
In racing, there is no miracle solution. You have to spray yourself with water, place ice packs on the neck and especially drink. A lot. “Up to seven liters in a stage like yesterday (Thursday)”, says Jacky Maillot. At Groupama-FDJ, the riders also swallow, before the start, “a capsule, like a doliprane, which records body temperature throughout the race”. “We collect the data in the evening” to analyze them, he adds.
“It’s our daily life”
The runners are not all housed in the same boat. “It’s genetic, the heat, I loved it, I was more afraid of the cold because I had never seen snow before coming to Europe”, explains to AFP the Australian Stuart O’Grady, former wearer of the yellow jersey. The Luxembourgish Andy Schleck, winner of the Tour in 2010, also says he has never been bothered : “At the Tour Down Under in Australia, I rode in 46 degrees. For a fit rider, that’s not a problem.”
But’intensity of the Tour de Francewith its terrible passes and its hellish pace, poses a real challenge. “It’s very hard and, with two weeks in the legs, we recover less well at night with the heat”, agrees O’Grady. What weigh on the final result, while the Slovenian Tadej Pogacar has the reputation of not liking high temperatures, even if he denies it? “We are not all equal in the face of heat”, confirms Samuel Bellenoue who underlines however that “tropical conditions” at the Rio and Tokyo Olympics, with high humidity, were well “more problematic”. “Heat has been part of our daily lives for a long time”he adds.
And probably for a long time. With the climate change, “we know that we will find these circumstances more and more”, notes Jacky Maillot. “A few years ago, a day over thirty degrees on the Tour was not so frequent. Today it is every year.”