Bad air clouds upcoming Beijing games, raises concerns for athletes
Olympic athlete explains how he felt during trials in Beijing
9:16 p.m. Tuesday, July 29, 2008
China has gone to extraordinary lengths to cut pollution, closing factories and restricting traffic, among other measures.
The growing worry is that today's decision is too little, too late.
That thick cloud shrouding the city is air pollution that is three times the recommended level.
For a week, a shroud of smog has tainted the image of Beijing's gleaming new, white, sports stadium.
On many days, the air quality is too poor for grandmothers to practice their gentle daily exercise routine in the park. Imagine what it's like for a runner or cyclist trying to beat a world record.
Those ingredients are toxic to the lungs of normal people, and athletes who breathe in large volumes of air when exercising are particularly at risk.
When athletes breathe in polluted air, the lungs start to swell, and the airways become constricted, making it difficult to breathe.
It's exactly what happened to Olympic triathlete Matt Reed at Olympic trials in Beijing last September.
"It felt terrible. Once I got the asthma, my body shut down, my lungs weren't taken any oxygen anymore, I could hardly run," Reed said.
Reed already had mild asthma, but even athletes without it can suffer exercise-induced asthma in bad smog.
On Monday, a portable air monitoring device showed a reading of particulate matter in the air that was three times more than the World Health Organization's guideline.
"If you took New York, Atlanta, Washington D.C., and combined their air quality together, that's how bad the air quality can get in Beijing on a bad day," Ohio State University Medical Center Pulmonologist and Professor Jonathan Parsons said.
Today, a strong shower and wind finally brought relief. And today, the machine reads only 10 micrograms of particulates per cubic meter, a good reading, and completely acceptable for athletes.
But Beijing can 't depend on Mother Nature's whims. Beijing has the added disadvantage of a geographical position, which makes the smog accumulate as if in a bowl.
Officials are now looking into a clean-air emergency plan that may involve more traffic restrictions in a last-ditch effort to deliver the green Olympics China promised.
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