Jet lag and Olympic performance

When North Americans travel to the Paris 2024 Olympics, athletes will be making up to a nine hour adjustment. According to Dr. Stephen Jasper in this report, that time difference can find its way to the podium:

Did you know that Olympic teams flying across multiple time zones can have their gold Olympic medal counts cut in half – or worse? And that the number of silver medals by Olympic medal teams actually increases when athletes travel long distances across multiple time zones – because athletes that were expected to win a gold medal come home with a silver one instead?

Jet lag has a massive impact on the performance of athletes who travel. The difference between a gold and a silver medal is often measured in milliseconds, and jet lag is enough to have an effect.

While I was researching my thesis in jet lag and executive performance, I decided to examine Olympic medal counts as a side project. After crunching the numbers for several decades’ worth of Olympic games, the results were crystal clear – jet lag has a definite and measurable impact on Olympic gold medal counts.

There are three key things that can have a massive impact on transforming jet lag:

• Know yourself – are you an owl or a fowl? Do you like to wake up at the crack of dawn, or at the crack of noon? There’s no guilt in honestly admitting you’re not a morning person – and that will affect how you manage your jet lag.
• Flight direction – for most people, “east is a beast, west is best”. But for the real morning people among us, you might find it’s the other way around!
• Sunlight – such a simple thing but getting outdoors for a few minutes in the middle of the day, or when you feel a bit drowsy, can reprogram the brain and wake you up.

Those three little steps can make a world of difference in managing your jet lag. For more information:

• My academic paper: https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/public-health/articles/10.3389/fpubh.2022.998484/full
• Gold medal prediction: https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7191321655913160704/
• My previous predictions for Tokyo Olympics: https://jetlagguy.com.au/

Editor’s note: Dr. Stephen Jasper is based in Melbourne, Australia.

Paris 2024 Olympic Sailing Program:
Men’s One Person Dinghy – ILCA 7
Women’s One Person Dinghy – ILCA 6
Mixed Two Person Dinghy – 470
Men’s Skiff – 49er
Women’s Skiff – 49erFX
Men’s Kiteboard – Formula Kite Class
Women’s Kiteboard – Formula Kite Class
Men’s Windsurfing – iQFOiL
Women’s Windsurfing – iQFOiL
Mixed Multihull – Nacra 17

Venue: Marseille, France
Dates: July 28-August 9

Details:
• Paris website: https://www.paris2024.org/en/the-olympic-games-paris-2024/
• World Sailing microsite: https://paris2024.sailing.org/