The Manitoba Marathon canceled due to blistering heat can provide a case study for sports event management in extreme weather conditions.
As researchers in kinesiology and leisure management, we were interested in how the disturbance was handled not only professionally, but also from a personal perspective: one of us (Shaelyn) participated in the half marathon.
The race was called off after it started, with the runners having already started an hour of racing. The result was ambiguity and confusion. Riders racked their brains during and after the race: wondering what they were supposed to do during the disruption and wondering how the course closure was handled after the event.
Racing in the heat
Hot road races could become more common. The climate crisis is expected to increase severe weather, which can have devastating consequences such as death, injury and disease when people are not prepared. Even when lives are not lost, the negative experience of an emergency can have psychological consequences.
Runners can train for the heat, wear proper clothing, and stay hydrated, but even these steps are often not enough to overcome the effects of the heat.. Exercising in the heat and humidity poses a serious challenge to the body’s ability to regulate body temperature and running in such conditions can significantly reduce performance and lead to health issues such as exhaustion and heatstroke.
Managing the hazards posed by climate change will be necessary for all community event organizers in the future.
A runner’s perspective
Shaelyn’s first-person account is helpful in understanding what happened on the course when the Manitoba Marathon was canceled. Here is his experience:
Like other runners, I had trained in an extremely cold winter and spring and was unprepared for a hot race in the record high temperatures that were predicted for this race at the end of June.
Event representatives urged runners to stay hydrated and adjust their aim given the predicted heat. I kept an eye on my email for an adjusted start time or cancellation. Without news, I head for the starting line. Once started, it didn’t take long for me to feel the heat of the day, but the volunteers did a great job keeping us hydrated.
However, I couldn’t escape the heat; several miles further on, my heart rate was above the ideal range. Eight kilometers from the end, a volunteer told us that the course was closed and that we could continue running if we wanted to, which puzzled me. Was the course really closed? Should I trust just one volunteer? If the course was closed, what were my options?
The course was not physically closed and the runners around me were still running. Realizing that there was no way to get back but on my own two feet, I kept running.
This answer is not surprising. Faced with a crisis, the Crisis and Emergency Risk Communication Handbook proposed by the United States Centers for Disease Control outlines four ways people process information:
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simplify the message,
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cling to current beliefs,
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looking for additional information and opinions and
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believe the first message.
When I crossed the finish line, there was no indication that the course was closed. It was only by listening to the news that I was able to confirm the closure. After recovering, I read the participants’ Twitter feeds. My sense of confusion and uncertainty were not unique. Conflicting reports have circulated about the closures of water stations and the non-regulation of traffic.
The closure of the course was understandable to protect the safety of the runners. However, participants may have been hesitant to quit given that they had likely been training for months and may have been using the race to try to achieve a goal or qualify for another race.
Lessons for future races
Effective communication reduces injuries and loss of life in an emergency by providing the public information to make the right choices. A crisis can be the catalyst that pushes organizations to build trust with their community or it may harm the relationship, depending on the strategy used.
Race organizers must provide runners with essential information regardless of the specific hazard. Runners should know in advance what to expect in the event of a race disruption or route change before heading out on the course. This way, whether there is a weather disruption, an act of violence or any other potentially catastrophic event, riders will be ready to respond.
The organizational structure of many events complicates the situation. Volunteers are essential to the delivery of many community events. While they bring skills and knowledge, they may not have specific emergency management training or be sufficiently prepared to help event attendees meet the challenges posed during a major disruption. Organizational preparedness should include ensuring that volunteers are prepared to respond to emergencies.
Events like the Manitoba Marathon offer runners the opportunity to achieve a goal that has taken months of training. This year however, many runners walked away from the event with mixed feelings about whether the event should have gone ahead and, if so, how the situation should have been handled.
As record high temperatures Continue around the world this summerinvesting in emergency preparedness is necessary to keep communities safe while sharing meaningful experiences together.
