Beijing out of breath

An increasing number of Olympians are threatening to skip part or all of the Olympics because they believe the air is unsafe.

Belgian tennis champion Justine Henin said she will probably skip the Beijing Olympics entirely out of fear that the air would aggravate her asthma.

Champion long-distance runner Haile Gebreselassie announced that he would not run the marathon in Beijing, opting instead for the 10,000-metre run, which is easier on the lungs.

Many teams have set up offshore training camps in South Korea or Japan, murmuring polite but shallow excuses to their Chinese hosts that they are avoiding the pre-Olympics media hype or trying to save money.

The British Olympic Association commissioned scientists to develop a high-tech breathing mask for its athletes to wear while competing.

The American Olympic officials say their athletes will not wear masks in the competitions but might do so at other times during their stay in Beijing.

For the Chinese, for whom saving face is crucial, it would be a nightmare to have athletes parade in front of television cameras wearing masks, or a raft of no-shows at the opening ceremony.

The country claims to have invested more than $16 billion to clean up Beijing's air before the Olympics. The Chinese pride themselves on mastering nature; in this case, they have literally tried to move heaven and earth.

Working under the auspices of the futuristic-sounding Bureau of Weather Modification, scientists have been practising techniques to induce rain showers before the games that would wash away pollutants.

Beijing's planners have created a forest on a 1,750-acre site just north of the Olympic village in order to raise oxygen levels.

Nearly a dozen factories are closing or relocating outside Beijing. Factories hundreds of miles away — in Inner Mongolia, Shanxi, Hebei and Shandong provinces — will suspend operations during the Olympics. About 1.5 million cars — half of those in the city — will be banned from the Beijing streets during the same period.

Jeff Ruffolo, a public relations consultant to the Beijing Olympics, says the concerns about air quality are similar to what he heard in the run-up to the 1984 Summer Games in Los Angeles. “In the end it was fine, and it will be in Beijing too,'' he said.

The Beijing Olympic organising committee announced in February that major pollutants — particulate matter, carbon monoxide, sulphur dioxide and nitrogen dioxide — in the city's air had dropped 13.8 per cent since Beijing won the Olympic bid.

Many athletes are sceptical of the claim.

“We race all around the world but I've never noticed pollution [as bad] as in Beijing. Sometimes we'd go for a bike ride before the race, then you'd get back and blow your nose and it's all black,'' said Matt Reed, a 32-year-old triathlete who suffered an asthma attack last year in Beijing.