Smart Mitten Keeps Athletes Cool at the 2024 Paris Olympics

Athletes competing in the 2024 Paris Olympics will face an unexpected challenge: warmer-than-average summer temperatures. To combat the heat, some Olympians are turning to a mitten-like device designed to keep them cool during competition.

CoolMitt was designed by Stanford University biologists Craig Heller and Dennis Grahn. It is a portable cooling solution that offers the wearer a smart way to cool down for up to eight hours on a single charge.

Athletes place their hands on the water-filled pad inside the mitt, which is kept at a cool 50 to 53 degrees Fahrenheit. CoolMitt’s vasocooling technology circulates cooler blood back to the athlete’s heart and muscles.

The Stanford team behind the device found its use resulted in increased strength and endurance by athletes in warmer environments from 25 to 50%.

CoolMitt has previously been used by Team USA wrestlers and fencer Alex Massialas. 

The tech-infused mittens were also used in the 2020 Tokyo Games, the hottest Summer Games on record, where temperatures hit 93 degrees Fahrenheit.

While the forecast for the Summer Games won’t be known until closer to the start, the French weather service predicts “warmer than normal conditions” during both the Olympics and Paralympics.

There will also be no air conditioning in the athlete’s village during the Olympics as the 2024 Paris Games will be the greenest ever. Instead, buildings housing athletes feature a specially designed cooling system that draws water from underground to keep buildings cool

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“It can be very hot and miserable [in Paris], as it was in Tokyo during the last Olympics,” Heller told the South China Morning Post. “And that increase in environmental temperature has lots of effects on performance.

Athletes can wear the CoolMitt during breaks in play or between events, preventing excessive heat from building up in muscles.

The device can reduce cramp build-up and also be used to aid rehab and physical therapy efforts.

“What CoolMitt does is prevent hyperthermia, a rise in body temperature to a dangerous level,” Heller said. “It enables you to have a higher work volume. And if you have a higher work volume, you get a bigger conditioning effect.”

CoolMitt’s origins trace back to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, where troops frequently became overheated and fatigued due to extreme heat.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the Pentagon’s emerging tech research arm, tasked the Stanford researchers to develop a solution.

Heller and Grahn spent a decade refining the technology, discovering it was suitable for use beyond the military in athletics and medical environments.

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The technology was initially licensed to medical device startup Avacore Technologies, but Heller told Sports Illustrated that the initial design was “cumbersome, expensive and fragile.”

The researchers then perfected the technology, turning it into the CoolMitt available from Arteria Technology.

Beyond sports, the CoolMitt has been used by first responders including firefighters and special forces military personnel.