“I’m worried that the kids will have a hard time.”
That’s the worry of a coach ahead of the Hwarangdae National Youth Soccer Tournament in Gyeongju. The tournament, organized by the Korea Football Association (KFA)-Gyeongju, will be held in Gyeongju, North Gyeongsang Province, starting on the 12th, and some of the matches for the under-11 (U-11) players will be played in the heat of the day, such as at 10:10-11am. This is an unusually hot time slot given the recent weather.
The opening ceremony was canceled due to the typhoon, but the weather is expected to be hot again once the tournament starts after the typhoon passes. Another youth team coach said, “In this kind of weather, team training is also held early in the morning or after 4-5pm to avoid the hottest time. It’s not easy for kids to adjust to playing in the heat,” he said. The general consensus in the field is that the heat is hard enough for adults, but when you consider the effects of geothermal heat on artificial turf, you can’t help but worry about the health of children.
There is also an indoor stadium, the Smart Airdome, but as the largest tournament in the elementary school category, the number of teams is so large that not all games can be played in the Airdome. In fact, it is reported that more than 500 school and club teams are participating in this tournament alone, with a total of about 10,000 athletes. With such a large number of teams and a limited number of stadiums, it’s inevitable that games will be organized at 11 a.m. or later.
As a result, most games are played outdoors on natural or artificial turf. We have managed to avoid scheduling games during the heat of the day, and although the U-12 tournament is scheduled after 5pm, some of the U-11 games will be played in the heat of the day. We cannot rule out the possibility of safety issues arising. This is why more careful scheduling and thorough safety measures are needed.
The organizers explained that they did not schedule any games during the hottest hours of the day and that the teams wanted as many athletes as possible to participate in the tournament. They also added that they were determined to hold the tournament with thorough safety measures against the heat.
An official from Gyeongju City said, “First of all, we did not assign games from noon to 5 p.m., which is the hottest time. We also discussed with the Airdome to ensure that the participating teams could play as evenly as possible. We prepared a lot of items for the heat, such as ice boxes, and provided them to the teams, and we plan to hold cooling breaks depending on the situation. If it is deemed difficult to play normally due to the heat wave, we will also prepare contingency plans such as breaks.”카지노사이트
The KFA, which organizes the match times, also said, “This is not the first year that the matches have been scheduled at that time. We have been communicating with the coaches through various trials and errors. The teams also want as many players as possible to play, which is why the matches were organized in the morning. We are continuing to work on this, with the recent introduction of the Airdome stadium. We are looking forward to improving our infrastructure in the future.”