When the Heat Is On, U.S. Runners Are Ready

U.S. Olympic track and field coach Bob Larsen yanked the high-tech cooling vests that had arrived just two days before the 2004 Olympic women's marathon in Athens out of the hotel's ice maker. He was aghast. The vests, designed to lower the body's core temperature before the start of a competition in heavy heat, had not frozen. They were not even cold.

Mindful of the race's start in about 24 hours, Larsen rushed to the athlete's dining hall at the Olympic Village, where he found an American working behind the counter. She surreptitiously stashed the specially designed vests in a walk-in freezer.

The next afternoon, the chilled vests arrived at the start line of the marathon in a cooler. Distance-running star Deena Kastor and her two American teammates strapped them on, then sat alone, shivering, in an air-conditioned locker room as most of their rivals warmed up by jogging in the ferocious, nearly 90-degree heat.

Kastor went on to produce the first of two stunning finishes for Americans, her bronze medal helping to break a decades-long streak of futility for the United States in the event. A week later, American Meb Keflezighi, who wore one of the Nike-designed vests before the men's marathon, won a silver despite having been ranked 39th at the start.

The vests represented the final piece of a multifaceted and intensely focused plan that U.S. officials quietly put into play as the Athens Olympics approached. Its surprising success convinced U.S. officials that they could beat the heat better than any other nation, and that they could surely do it again this summer in Beijing, where temperatures are likely to average and possibly exceed 85 degrees with high humidity and sub-par air quality.

"To sit in that stadium and see those two kids coming in with USA on their jerseys, I think that will probably be my fondest memory of any Olympic Games I've ever been involved with," said Randy Wilber, senior sport physiologist for the U.S. Olympic Committee. "For me, it confirmed the fact that you can beat a lot of people with a lot more ability than you, if you use sports science correctly. Somehow, some way, our kids put all those factors together."

Because of the significant danger to competitors, distance races are almost never run in extreme heat, except at the Summer Olympics and world championships, when they are tied to larger competitions that dictate their scheduling. At the marathons in Athens, 37 runners did not finish.

Given the results -- and the plethora of PhDs once again backing this year's U.S. Olympic team -- some U.S. officials believe their medal hopes might actually increase as conditions worsen.

"We don't want the rest of the world to know what we're going to do, because medals are involved," said David Martin, a professor emeritus at Georgia State who was a central figure in the Athens marathon preparations. But, he said, U.S. officials have been wondering "how do we pull this off again? It's taken me three years to figure that out."

"Everybody's been dissecting" what the United States did in 2004, Martin said. "Thank God it's not going to work, because Beijing is completely different than Athens."

Athens radiated a dry heat; this summer, Beijing could feel like the tropics. In Athens, the marathon began in the late afternoon, providing the most brutal conditions early in the race. In Beijing, the marathons are scheduled in the morning, meaning the heat's full force will be felt at the finish. Athens had a hilly course; Beijing's is flat. Athens's pollution was considered bad; Beijing's is worse, though the IOC has said it would postpone outdoor endurance events in Beijing should the pollution be too excessive.

"Pollution is getting all the publicity . . . but we're sending the message loud and clear that it's important not to get distracted from the real environmental factor likely to detract from performance: the heat and humidity," Wilber said.