Posted on 08/04/2007 7:55:29 PM PDT by JACKRUSSELL
Standing on a soccer field before a match as the national anthem plays is always a breathtaking experience for Canadian goalkeeper Karina LeBlanc.
But when LeBlanc, 27, and her national teammates were training in Beijing in April and May, it was the city's polluted air that had them choked up.
"You get over there, it's different," LeBlanc said.
"You find it a bit more difficult to breathe or you find it's almost like there's phlegm in your throat."
While the team was in Beijing, the city's air quality was measured as high as 210, eight times worse than the air breathed in downtown Toronto over the same time period, according to Canadian Olympic Committee meteorologists. Air quality over 50 is considered poor in Ontario.
The women's experience provides a smoggy outlook for athletes heading to Beijing – one of the world's most polluted cities – for the Olympics about a year from now.
It's particularly bad news for athletes in competitions with numerous events – like softball – and for those competing in long-distance and aerobic endurance events, says Greg Anderson, an exercise physiologist at University College of the Fraser Valley who travelled to Beijing with the women's team.
"The marathons, the long-distance cycling, the triathlons, those have to have a negative impact," said Anderson. "A world record in one of those real aerobic events, I don't think can happen in that environment."
The Canadian women's soccer team was training in Beijing for about two weeks in preparation for next month's World Cup and played two friendly matches against China in Nanjing, northwest of Shanghai.
Soon after arriving, several players with mild cases of asthma were taking drags on inhalers they hadn't needed in years.
Not everyone's lungs became constricted, but by the fourth day every throat – even the training staff's – was irritated and clogged by mucus that was trying to defend the lungs from black particulate matter. The dirty air formed a film on their skin.
During the "friendlies" in Nanjing, every player suffered nasty chest pains caused by high ozone levels.
Their performance level – recorded in Vancouver during a 20-metre shuttle run and recorded again in Beijing – dropped on average by 10 per cent.
That was April and May, and in June Beijing recorded its worst air quality for the month in seven years, state media reported. Particles in the air were the main pollutant, officials said.
Beijing has promised to clean up its air in advance of the Olympics by implementing tougher emission standards for its three million registered vehicles, taking older taxis and buses off the road, improving public transportation and moving some of the worst polluting factories and plants out of the city. Beijing officials reportedly plan to take one million cars off the road sometime this month to test how much pollution can be reduced
"The demand of foreign athletes and Chinese athletes is the same," Reuters quoted China's deputy sports minister this week. "We all need fresh air and good weather ... to compete."
The International Olympic Committee says it's satisfied so far with Beijing's plans and points out that air quality issues aren't new for the Olympic Games.
"Los Angeles, Seoul and Atlanta all had air quality issues that were successfully addressed at Games time by initiatives such as reducing traffic," said IOC communications director Giselle Davies. "Air quality, has been reviewed with the Beijing Organizing Committee both at our meeting with them in April and will be on the table for further discussion this August when the IOC is back in town."
Still, Canadian Olympic Committee CEO Chris Rudge knows that while the air may be better in a year, it's guaranteed to affect athletes.
That's why COC environmental physiologist Jon Kolb is heading back to Beijing tomorrow to measure the air quality. As well, more athletes are being tested for asthma before the Games.
That's a crucial step, as athletes need a prescription so they can request a therapeutic use exemption for their inhaler and stay clear of anti-doping rules.
Aside from packing a puffer, Kolb said athletes will want to train close to Beijing – like Shanghai or Japan – at least two weeks before their event so their body can acclimatize to the heat. August is an historically warm month in Beijing with humidity adding to the heat. At 11 p.m. local time last night, it was 25C and feeling like 27 with 89 per cent humidity, according to weather.com.
But there's no benefit in breathing Beijing's polluted air until it's necessary, Kolb said. Athletes are being told to spend as little time as possible in Beijing before their event.
"You don't want to acclimatize to the pollutants," Kolb said.
Oh but how can this be in the People’s Republic of Heaven, second only to Cuba as the land of liberal wonderment and enlightened doing things for the good of the people?
And I feel that American athletes going there are asking for trouble be it environmental or otherwise.
I was just in Bejing last week. I’ve never seen anything like the pollution there. We had clear days. And we still couldn’t see the sky. Just a vague outline where the sun was. Buildings a quarter mile away simply vanished into the haze. Any American who complains about our air should spend an hour in that dump. Can’t imagine that air as horrible as that in Bejing is good for the Olympic athletes. I’d hate to have to run a marathon in it thats for sure.
China is the only place that I’ve traveled where my eyes burn when I wake up in the morning.
World boycott of China olympics for health reasons. Piss them off something terrible. Ha, ha. Tell them we’ll be back when their air is healthy.
Wait until the liberals see this mess. Maybe they will freak out and demand we stop buying Chinese stuff. Save the planet!!! Boycott China.
I lived in Hong Kong in 1998, I used to joke that you could chew the pollution it was so bad.
The air smells like you’re standing next to a diesel bus exhaust pipe at all times. Clouds of pollution roll across the parking lot like fog.
I had to close my bedroom window at night (sleeping in my wife’s parents house) because it smelled like a tractor trailer was parked outside pumping exhaust into my room.
You can smell cars that pass for several minutes as they spray choking pollution into the air.
I don’t see how anyone can compete athletically in China.
...by the fourth day every throat – even the training staff’s – was irritated and clogged by mucus...
If Katie Couric was a serious journalist she’d be over there right now doing and expose on the “sputum.”
It’s going to clear soon...the Chinese have almost run out of wood to burn...(and water....farm land....etc..)
that smoke is from all the American jobs sent to China in the last 15 years
the Chinese have almost run out of wood to burn...(and water....farm land....etc..)
They’ve been buying a lot of oil.
It’s a communist thing. Living in Berlin we went over to East Berlin many times. Since prevailing winds were west to east we’d come back over to West Berlin with sinuses full of black gunk due to the pollution, the majority of which was dirty coal.
It would take several days to blow it all out.
*slap!*
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