Hot Wheels: How Finland's athletes keep their cool at Paris Olympics

Finnish Olympian Joni Savaste has been hitting the trails at Elancourt Hills every day since arriving in Paris ahead of the games.

The course, at an old quarry west of the French capital, offers views back across the city to the Eiffel Tower but Savaste, 20, has little time to take in the sights.

“The practice sessions are good, I made a few more laps and it’s an intensive and fast course. The track is getting better when it’s been ridden more and hopefully some rain would give extra grip,” the Espoo native tells Finland Insider from the Olympic Village in Paris where he checked in last weekend.

The temperatures in Paris this week have been moderate by French summer standards in the mid-to-high 20s. But next week when Savaste and the other mountain bike competitors hit their course in the middle of the afternoon, the temperature is forecast to hit 33°C.

In the past few years France has faced a series of deadly summer heatwaves with temperatures routinely reaching 40°C, and an estimated 5,000 extra fatalities attributed to extreme heat last year alone.

That means all the Finnish athletes, but especially endurance athletes like Joni Savaste who will spent around 90 minutes in the blazing afternoon sun next week, have to take precautions.

“It’s a forest course with gravel patches, so it’s cooler in the trees. I just have to drink very much before the race and eat to get the energy I need. That’s my main preparation,” Finland’s first-ever mountain bike Olympic athlete explains.

“Headache is the main warning symptom for me because if I don’t drink I get headaches, and sometimes cramps.”

The mountain bike course is 4.3km long and the cyclists will navigate seven loops of the track, negotiating long climbs, downhill sections and sharp turns.

Mountain biking has no qualifying rounds, so Savaste has just one shot at Olympic glory.

“It’s tough. The starting order is decided by which countries have the most points in bigger races. In Finland we don’t have so many points so I might start in the back row,” he explains, taking on athletes from mountain bike powerhouse nations including Switzerland, Austria, the US, France and Canada.

“Those countries have very good mountain bikers.”

Medical and practical help for Finnish athletes

The International Olympic Committee is keenly aware of the need to put athlete welfare at the top of their priorities in the event of extreme heat episodes.

Last month, a group of ex-Olympic athletes and climate scientists published a report warning about the potential dangers of a heatwave at the Paris Olympics, and the impact more generally of global warming on sports events.

At other competitions, including the 2019 Athletics World Championships in Doha and the 2021 Tokyo Olympics, some endurance events were rescheduled in cooler parts of the day or even moved hundreds of kilometres away to a more temperate location.

“Most of our athletes are quite experienced and have competed in hot temperatures before so this is nothing new. But it is very essential that your body is adapted to the heat and so the acclimatisation is the most important thing,” explains Dr Maarit Valtonen, the Head of the Finnish medical team at the Paris 2024 Olympics.

“Endurance sports are the most risky sports in this perspective, and we actually have a sports psychologist who consults with athletes and coaches when preparing for these games,” she tells Finland Insider.

The Finnish team is one of several to bring their own air conditioning units to Paris.

It’s uncommon to find air conditioning in French homes, so when the Olympic Village was being built, apartments were constructed with heat pumps and designed to be six degrees cooler inside than outside. That wasn’t quite cold enough for the Finns who opted to bring their own cooling units instead.

At competition venues in France however, there are a number of other measures in place to keep athletes cool.

“They have cold water showers along the way [at some sports] and a lot of water and hydration stations. They are encouraging the teams to be prepared with cold vests and things like that. And one important thing is emergency care so in the venues they have ice baths and they are prepared to take care of the athletes,” explains Dr Valtonen.

“In the Finnish team we have cold vests, we have cold bottles you can put around your neck,” she adds.

“The newest research shows if you are adapted to the heat, and your core temperature rises during a competition, it can rise even to 41 Celsius. If you are adapted and acclimatised you can cope with higher temperatures.”

Mountain bike competition on Monday

For mountain biker Joni Savaste, his time at the Olympic Games will be short but he’s making the most of his trip to Paris.

Apart from those daily training runs on the competition course, he’s had the chance to cycle around the French capital - and he’ll take part in Friday night’s opening ceremony with other Finnish athletes on a boat on the River Seine.

“I didn’t expect this. I didn’t expect to be here. A month ago I got the call that I am selected and now I am in the Olympic Village,” he laughs.

Savaste’s family are coming to Paris to cheer him on during Monday’s medal race and then it’s all over: he’s already returning to Finland the following day where a part-time job at K-Market helps fund his next Olympic target: Los Angeles 2028.

“When I go home, I’ll be watching the games on TV.”