Qatar wants to host the 2036 Olympics and promises an air-conditioned marathon

The World Cup still has the most important matches to play – the quarter-finals will begin this Friday, with the duels between Brazil-Croatia and Argentina-Holland-, but in Qatar They already think about the future. The great success of the FIFA event – beyond the criticisms of intolerance towards expressions in favor of the LGBTQ+ community and the accusations of human rights violations – prompted that country to launch its candidacy for the Olympics 2036.

With a large part of the infrastructure in good condition – the stadiums, the subway lines and even the airport have been prepared for the championship in which the Biancoceleste team seeks its third title – thinking about the possibility of celebrating the great sporting event within 14 years in the Arab lands, the main concern of the world of Olympism from a strictly organizational point of view It’s the heat. However, in Qatar they imagine the Games to take place in the northern autumn – to avoid the high summer temperatures – and totally refrigerated. And even an air-conditioned Olympic marathon.

The last occurrence came from the mind of Saud Abdulaziz Abdul Ghaniengineer responsible for climate conditioning of World Cup stadiums and known as “Doctor Cool” (Doctor Cold). “It’s feasible and possible. From an engineering point of view, anything is possible,” he said.

An engineering professor at Qatar University, Saud spent 13 years working on the system used to cool seven of the tournament’s eight stadiums Fifain which the players and the public remain at around 21 degrees Celsius -although many say it seems much less- thanks to the air jets that blow over the pitch and under the spectator seats.

In the face of the 2036 Olympic event, the engineer was encouraged to project some possibilities at a press conference held this week. “You don’t need to refrigerate the entire course (of the marathon, a test that covers a distance of 42,195 kilometers). Maybe there could be refrigeration stations and things like that,” he said, according to the agency. AFP extension. Another possibility would be to run an eight kilometer refrigerated course, in which the athletes make several laps.

Are these ideas feasible? In the cultural district of Catharlocated on the east coast of Doha, there are already heated roads. And in the capital park there is a 1.1-kilometer running track with a refrigeration system.

“We showed the world that technologically we have the capabilities”Saud said, although he clarified he had not yet been approached by the Olympic committee or the Qatari government to begin work on the project.

And given the criticism that the air conditioning system in the World Cup stadiums is a “waste of energy”, cool doctor he replied that “Qatar’s solar power more than compensates for that used to keep those spaces cool.”

This will be the third Olympic bid for Qatar, who had applied for the 2016 appointments, which was made in Rio de Janeiroand that of 2020, which was held in Tokyo last year (delayed by the coronavirus pandemic).

The International Olympic Committee He has always been skeptical that this country could have the infrastructure to organize an event that brings together thousands of athletes from multiple sports (in 2021, in the Japanese capital, nearly 11,500 competed in 50 disciplines) and millions of spectators. But Doha officials believe the World Cup success will be a good platform to fight for the 2036 Games.

However, logistically, hosting a World Cup is very different from hosting an Olympics, especially since many sports don’t take place inside closed stadiums, as is the case with football matches.

One of the points raised by the detractors of an Olympic event in Qatar was that it would have been difficult to organize, for example, a competition in Mountain biking in a country whose highest geographical point It is just 103 meters above sea level.

The greatest concern, however, are the high temperatures, which already gave the IOC more than a headache a few years ago, when Doha hosted the World Championship in Athletics.

The background that worries

That event -like the current World Cup- was held on an unusual date (from 28 September to 6 October 2019; instead of the traditional June or July) in order not to subject the athletes to the extreme heat of Qatar

The track and field events, held in the air-conditioned stadium Khalifa -which hosted several FIFA tournament group stage matches, as well as the round of 16 between Holland Y United States of America, and who will receive the duel for third place on Saturday 17th, took place without problems. But the athletes who competed outside that venue didn’t have much fun.

The events of the marathon and the march, which were to be held at dawn, left shocking images. Exhausted athletes, unable to stand up, some collapsed on the asphalt or taken away in wheelchairs or ambulances, without strength… And those were the lucky ones, those who managed to reach the finish line, those who are not collapsed along the way and were able to win the fight against extremely high temperatures and high humidity.

The men’s 50km walk, for example, started at 11.30pm on Saturday, with 46 competitors. Fourteen left before the end, unable to bear the 30+ degrees and 75% humidity of the night. And in the women’s marathon, which started one minute before midnight, with a temperature of 32.7 degrees and a humidity of 73.3 percent, 28 of the 68 athletes withdrew without completing the coursewho set a record for abandonments in this test at the World Cup.

With that precedent still in the memory of world athletics – and sport -, Qatar will have to convince more than one skeptic that it could hold the Olympic Games without subjecting athletes to similar situations. But from the Asian state – which will host the World Cup in January 2024 and the next Asian Cup in football next year – they are confident in their ability to find a way around the heat problem.

“We did it and we can do it again”Saud assured, with the certainty that Qatar’s ingenuity, technology and money will be enough to transform his country into the first Arab host of the great event of the Olympics.