Optimizing light environments in aquatics center to enhance the performance of Olympic champions and other elite swimmers: An experimental study

Several major international sports events in the next five years require new sports venues, with lighting environments being a crucial factor. Typically, the lighting systems in sports venues are primarily for illumination. However, since light has been indicated to affect human psychology and physiology, we investigated whether the light environments in sports buildings impact athletic performance. Additionally, swimming is the indoor sport with the most gold medals in the Olympics. Therefore, we conducted a within-subject, randomized crossover study in an aquatics center with fourteen elite swimmers, including the Olympic champions and Asian champions (6 female and 8 male; 19.3 ± 3.4 years of age). During the experiment, the elite swimmers were exposed to either a common correlated color temperature (CCT) light environment (controlled condition: 5780 K) or an experimental light environment (8512 K) in the aquatics center, with both having the same illuminance (1020 lx). The neurobehavioral and swimming test results showed that the Olympic champions and other elite swimmers had significantly faster responses, fewer lapses, greater arousal, less visual fatigue, quicker reactions at start, and higher swimming speeds in the experimental condition compared to the controlled condition (p < 0.05). Our findings suggest that the light environment in the aquatics center affects swimmers' non-visual performance and enhancing the CCT of the light environment could improve swimmers' performance. We propose the concepts of Sports Lighting Beyond Illumination and Sports Human-Centric Lighting to enhance athletes’ health and performance, and to improve the sports environment for a better experience for all participants.