Despite smoky conditions, World Athletics U20 Championships are off and running

This story has been updated with additional information.

The World Athletics U20 Championships began as planned at Hayward Field Wednesday, Aug. 5, while athletes, coaches and stadium workers found ways to deal with the wildfire smoke filling the air and obscuring the view from the stadium.

None of the meet’s Wednesday events was postponed or rescheduled as the Air Quality Index for the area rose from the 170s (indicating unhealthy conditions for all groups) during the afternoon to a reading of 237 (very unhealthy conditions) as of 7 p.m. 

At a premeet press conference Tuesday afternoon, World Athletics president Sebastian Coe said the governing body was monitoring air quality levels, but did not specify a plan or potential countermeasures.

Emails from Lookout Eugene-Springfield to World Athletics officials for comment were not immediately returned Wednesday. An official from U.S Track & Field (USATF) said via text that the organization does not “organize or have any control over this event. This is a World Athletics event so I’d ask them about their policy.” He later said that World Athletics is providing masks in every team tent.

Athletes cope 

The U.S. mixed 4×400-meter relay team, which included Olivia Harris, Jaelen Hunter, Natalie Dumas and Joshua Shelton, ran a world U20-leading 3 minutes, 18.26 seconds in Wednesday morning’s preliminaries. All four athletes noticed the air quality, they said; Dumas said she and Harris had been taking allergy medication to counteract the effects of the smoke.

World U20 women’s 100-meter leader Shanoya Douglas won her preliminary heat, too. The Jamaican athlete said that she had noticed the effects during an in-venue practice Tuesday, when the smoke made her nose burn, and had been washing her face and drinking lots of water in response.

“I was like, ‘Oh well. It is what it is,’” Douglas said of her reaction at the Tuesday practice.

Americans Mia and Mariah Maxwell and Tate Taylor, all three of whom won their respective heats in Wednesday’s 100-meter preliminary rounds, said they didn’t notice the smoke.

U.S. thrower Jaslene Massey, who is committed to throw at Oregon in 2026, wore a D95 mask throughout her discus preliminary round Wednesday evening as she qualified to the final on her first throw. Massey, who is an asthmatic, said USATF was supplying masks and water in its tent. She didn’t wear her mask while throwing but wore it in between throws.

University of Oregon commit Ellery Lincoln, a middle-distance runner from Portland’s Lincoln High School, has been training and living in the area most of her life and is scheduled to run in the 1,500-meter prelims Thursday evening. Her coach, Eric Dettman, has been coaching track and field and cross-country at Lincoln for 14 years.

“It’s something we’ve got to be really cautious about, because everybody responds to it differently,” Dettman said of the conditions Wednesday.

Lincoln, who faced serious breathing issues her sophomore year of high school, ran on an indoor treadmill while training Tuesday, and Dettman was part of a conversation about whether it made sense for her to warm up in a mask. He said those precautions would be a day-of-race decision for Lincoln’s camp, but that at this point she wouldn’t use a mask to warm up. He didn’t anticipate a need to pull Lincoln from the race and said she was “great at looking at adversity and recognizing it’s just going to make her better,” but said, “it definitely throws a little bit of a wrench into things.”

Dettman noted that the Oregon School Activities Association, which governs high school athletic events in the state, advises canceling events when AQI levels hit 150. 

“I personally am like a 110, 120 person just because I’ve had some family members who have had issues with higher AQI counts,” he said. “I don’t love it if somebody’s running at 180 or something like that. I’ve done it myself in the past and I’m still here today. I don’t love it, but I think, again, for a really short period of time, I’m OK with that idea.”

When Dettman dealt with smoke in 2020, he said, he duct-taped a mask to his face when he ran before the cross-country season, and his team would cancel practice in adverse conditions. 

“That’s the easiest thing; we’d try to stay inside as much as possible,” he said. “But for an event like this, I don’t fault the world championships. You’ve got the entire world here. It’s not like you can move this two days later or something like that. So they’re just going to work with the best information they’ve got, and I think as long as kids are not out in those conditions for a really prolonged period of time, I think they’ll generally be just fine.”

Dettman said as of Wednesday afternoon he and other coaches hadn’t received communication from USATF or World Athletics on measures to deal with the air quality.

“I wish there was more communication about policy or anything like that, but I also recognize these people have so many different things going on and managing all these different entities that who am I to deserve that type of information?” he said. “I don’t fault them whatsoever.”

At least one federation, Swiss Athletics, recommended to its athletes that they wear a mask when watching events from the stands Wednesday. Swiss steepler Lars Oeschger said he brought and wore his mask at the stadium Wednesday, and also wore it on his flight. Emails and WhatsApp messages from Lookout Eugene-Springfield to a Swiss Athletics official were not immediately returned.

Wednesday morning, the University of Oregon supplied N95 masks to janitorial staff because of the deteriorating air quality. Some of the staff wore masks — either the supplied N95 masks or from home — when they arrived at Hayward Field in the morning. At least two workers, who both said they were scheduled to be at the stadium until 2 p.m., chose to wear the masks. 

“The university supplied us with masks, optional,” ABM janitorial supervisor Tammy Culpepper, who has worked with ABM for three years, said. “Just to be careful, and to keep an eye on the quality control of the air.”

2022 smoke study 

When World Athletics’ senior world championship meet came to Hayward Field in 2022, it partnered with the UO Ecosystem Workforce Program to produce a study of the impact of wildfire smoke on athletic events. The project placed sensors to monitor the air at the stadium while the Ecosystem Workforce Program conducted a survey.

The survey asked specifically about smoke literacy and the air’s effects on spectators — not necessarily athletes — and found that most respondents expected UO venues to cancel the event if the air quality became unhealthy for most people.

Several members of that study group are active in Eugene, and Heidi Huber-Stearns, the third author on the 2022 study, serves as director of the UO Center for Wildfire Smoke Research and Practice (also referred to as the Smoke Center). She noted that athletes competing this week may face elevated exposure risks during strenuous outdoor activity because they breathe more air and therefore inhale more pollutants.

“At the Smoke Center, we emphasize that when air quality guidance refers to ‘sensitive groups,’ that includes all children, all older adults, and anyone with cardiovascular or respiratory conditions,” Huber-Stearns said. “People sometimes assume those categories apply only to a small number of individuals, when in fact they represent a substantial portion of the population.”

Heat can also compound the health risks associated with smoke exposure, particularly for people who lack access to adequate indoor cooling or who spend extended periods outdoors during periods of elevated temperatures, according to Huber-Stearns. Wednesday’s temperature peaked at about 92 Wednesday, according to the National Weather Service. Thursday’s high is forecast at 94, with a high of 93 expected Friday.

For people considering whether to attend outdoor events during potentially poor air quality conditions, Huber-Stearns recommends consulting multiple sources of information, with AirNow and the Oregon Smoke Blog as primary resources.

PurpleAir can also provide additional localized data. Personal observations about visibility are useful, but should not be the primary basis for decision-making about air quality conditions, she says. AirNow’s monitor is located at Amazon Park, a five-minute drive from Hayward Field, while PurpleAir has several monitors, including some around the stadium.

For the athletes, Huber-Stearns said that research on the effects of wildfire smoke exposure during high-intensity athletic performance is still evolving. While public health guidance generally recommends reducing strenuous outdoor activity during periods of poor air quality, questions remain about how smoke exposure affects competitive athletes and what thresholds may be most appropriate for athletic events.

The Lane Regional Air Protection Agency, in its Tuesday news release announcing an air quality advisory, said it expected the advisory to last through Thursday afternoon. The release said a “weather change is expected Friday that may bring cleaner air to Lane County, although the timing remains uncertain.”