Sport Safety: Preventing Sudden Death in Sport

Yuri Hosokawa serves as Associate Professor at Waseda University's Faculty of Sport Sciences, where she leads groundbreaking research in athletic training and environmental exercise physiology. After completing her PhD in Exercise Science from the University of Connecticut in 2016, she has established herself as a leading expert in preventing sudden death in sports and managing exertional heat stroke. Her work gained international recognition when she served on the International Olympic Committee's Adverse Weather Impact Expert Working Group for the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, where her expertise helped ensure zero heat-illness-related hospitalizations during the games. She directs the Safety and Performance Optimization Laboratory at Waseda, focusing on integrating exercise science and clinical medicine to enhance athlete safety. Her research spans heat illness prevention, thermoregulation, and sports safety, with particular emphasis on developing regional-specific heat guidelines and establishing best practices in road race medicine. Through initiatives like the Sugadaira AED For Everyone project and her collaboration on educational videos for children about heat-illness prevention, she continues to bridge the gap between research and practical application in sports medicine. Her contributions to the field include numerous influential publications on exertional heat stroke management and sports safety, making her a pioneering figure in advancing athletic training practices in Japan and internationally.