Which Olympic sport burns the most calories?

During the 2024 Summer Olympics, athletes from more than 200 countries will comPete in over 300 events. As you watch athletes sprint, leap, swim and flip in pursuit of a gold medal, you might wonder: which Olympic event burns the most calories?

There are two ways to answer this question: looking at the total energy spent across a whole event or judging the biggest burst of energy required in the course of a given challenge. 

Researchers usually define the energy cost of an activity as a measure of calories per kilogram of body weight per hour (kcal/kg/hour). So, if an exercise uses 2 kcal/kg/hour, you could expect an average human weighing about 185 pounds (84 kg) to burn 168 calories, if they worked out for a full hour.

There are individual differences between people; some will use less energy to perform the same activity, while others whose body weight is made up of more fat cells typically burn more. On average, an adult at rest will use 1 kcal/kg/hour, and any activity that requires more than 6 kcal/kg/hour is classified as "vigorous-intensive" in the Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans.

Related: How calories are calculated: The Science behind your food

Running demands more

Of all the sports at this year's Olympics, the running events will result in the most calories burned per kilogram of body weight per hour.

Accelerating is much more energetically demanding than running at a constant speed, so events such as the 100 meters — in which runners accelerate from 0 to 5 meters per second (16 feet per second) in under a second — will use a large number of calories in a short period. Calculations by Pietro di Prampero, a professor of physiology at the University of Udine in Italy, revealed that during the first 0.85 seconds of Usain Bolt's world-record 100-m sprint, he was burning 91.2 kcal/kg/hour.