The EHF is committed to safeguarding players’ health as well as helping coaches and athletes develop better strategies to prepare and improve performance. Therefore, the EHF joined forces with Qatari-based orthopaedic and sports hospital, Aspetar, to conduct a research project involving four teams competing at the YAC17 EHF Beach Handball EURO 2025.
During the four-day event, the Spain men’s and women’s teams, as well as Hungary’s men’s and women’s squads, were the four teams monitored by three specialists: Executive director of research and scientific support at Aspetar, Prof. Marco Cardinale; Dr. Christopher Esh, a post-doctoral researcher in environmental physiology from Aspetar; and professor at the University of Alicante and EHF Methods Commission member, Prof. Carmen Manchado.
The coastal city of Alanya, Türkiye, where the European Championship was played, records an average temperature of 33ºC in July, with some peaks closer to 40ºC. These temperatures are considered severe in terms of heat stress on the body and can pose a high risk for players not used to performing in such conditions.
Speaking during the YAC17 Beach Handball EURO 2025, Cardinale and Manchado explained the technology used and the variables measured across the athletes of the four teams, as well as how teams can better prepare for these kinds of conditions.
EHF: Could you explain how the research is conducted and what measurements you are taking?
Marco Cardinale: We are trying to measure what happens to the players while they play. We want to see how the body copes with playing in the heat. We are using technology to measure the players as they move on the field of play: How fast they move, how much distance they cover, the number of accelerations and decelerations. But at the same time, the players are ingesting a telemetric pill that sits in their stomach and measures the temperature of the body.
We are able to measure the temperature of the body when they arrive on the field of play and during the match, as well as afterwards, so we can see how the body copes with the heat. We are also measuring their hydration status from saliva on the tongue, and we are measuring the sweat composition by using a special plaster that we apply on the back of each player.
Carmen Manchado: I'm monitoring the time motion of the players together with the heart rate so that we have the distance and the different velocity zones that the players are performing, together with the corresponding heart rate. It seems that for some players who at the end of the match were a little bit dehydrated, their heart rates increased much more compared to the other players. We know that one of the consequences of dehydration is an increased chance to experience fatigue during the matches, which could lead to mistakes in crucial moments of the match.
EHF: Why is it important to collect these data?
Marco Cardinale: All this information together is going to help us explain to the coaches and the players what happens when they play several games in the heat, because what we want to help them with is how to prepare for these events, but also how to recover between matches in a tournament like the EURO. And most of all we are thinking about the safety of the players, so we want to make sure that the players can play at a high level and be safe and repeat this two times a day.
I can already tell that in the first few days, because the players could see some of their data already, they were changing their behaviour, improving their hydration status. So, that shows that if people have data and information, they change their behaviour and they are better prepared when they step onto the court.
Carmen Manchado: We try to bring a little bit of light to our sport. Knowing what the players are doing in the games, we can also prepare them better for these matches. It is difficult to prepare someone for something that we don't know. Analysing the competition is always important to create individual training plans, for example, depending on the positions. Also, high rotation plans, depending on the temperature or the weather conditions. We hope to bring some good results and ideas to the coaches so that they can use them to improve how they coach their players.
EHF: What was the highest body temperature measured among the athletes of the four teams?
Marco Cardinale: Normal body temperature is around 37°C. Players can get up to 38°C, 38.5°C on average during a match. When they go over 39°C, athletes experience accelerated fatigue and they make mistakes, and they don't feel at 100 per cent and might suffer from heat stress. But we have seen that elite athletes who are used to training and competing in the heat or are very well acclimatised can sustain up to 41°C. We've seen it in triathlon athletes and in marathon runners. But in this tournament we have young players and so we want to really see how we can keep them safe and allow them to perform.
So, the key is to understand how they cope and give some guidelines. Yesterday we had somebody that reached 39.7°C, which is the highest temperature we measured in beach handball, but senior players might be able to play even if their core body temperature reaches 40°C.
EHF: What exactly is measured using the special plaster?
Marco Cardinale: We are trying to measure the concentration of sodium in the sweat. Why do we do that? It's because if you have high sodium concentration in the sweat, it means you are more at risk of having cramps, for example.
We flag the players who are at risk, and we tell them that they should drink a little bit more sodium in their post-match drink or in preparation for the game. And so far we've seen a large variability in this parameter, as we normally expect. Some players have more sodium in their sweat, others have less, which is similar to what we have seen in other athletes in different sports. We use these data to provide some personalised solutions.
EHF: How fast can the body cool down after such an overload and what are the simple solutions?
Marco Cardinale: Very, very quickly. Of course, there is the sea — that's the easiest way of doing it, because you immerse your body in the sea, and if the water is cold enough, your body temperature goes down very quickly. Other ways of doing it are, of course, to have a cold shower or wear a cold jacket (with water/ice) and drink cold fluids. And one of the most effective tricks to lower your body temperature is to immerse your forearm in cold water. Because the forearm and the hand are full of capillaries and superficial veins, your blood gets cooler and goes all around the body and cools you down, so it's the most efficient, effective, cheapest way of doing it. Also, there is evidence that this might improve performance in the heat.
But you can be clever as well. If you know you're playing in the heat, you can prepare your body by cooling it down before you go and play. So, you can use a vest that cools your body down with ice packs, or you can go into an ice bath and lower your temperature before you go. But one of the other simple strategies you can do is that you don't need to do a very long warm-up if the temperature is very high. This is because if you do a very long warm-up, you can increase your body temperature too quickly before you even start the match. That puts you at risk when you are in the match.
