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2008 Beijing Olympics
Wednesday, July 23rd, 2008
Racewalk.com is pleased to bring you it’s coverage of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Race Walks. We are fortunate enough to have arrived weeks before the first walk and can see the massive preparations underway. One can hardly look in any direction and not see Olympic flags and banners. Indeed when you arrive at the airport there are many special lines, like at customs, dedicated to official Olympic business.
Everyday life is affected dramatically. While stories of industry completely shutting down are exaggerations, steps were taken years ago to improve the air quality in Beijing. Heavy polluting coal power plants were moved out of the city and newer clearer plants are used within Beijing. In addition, from now through the Games, traffic is limited on the roads on an odd/even system. Cars with odd license plates can drive one day and cars with even plates another. As many people have multiple cars, this may have proved less effective than planned. In addition, non Olympic traffic is restricted from the left lane of the highway. This allows a quick corridor for Olympic vehicles to get around the city. Ironically, this has interfered with our plan to visit a less trafficed section of the Great Wall. If our host drives us, we have to return the same day, because the same car can not be driven two days in a row.
As to the question everyone has on their mind. What effect if any does all this have on air quality? My host in Beijing tells me that over the past few years the air in Beijing has improved, however there has been no recent improvement in the last month or so. This was surprising to me as I thought many last minute efforts were taking place. With this said, when I left the airport I was struck by the hot humid air and foggy atmosphere of the city. Supposedly, the fog was temporary. It was hard to breath due to the heat index, but I didn’t feel any difficulties due to air pollution. I checked the weather report and tomorrow is supposed to be sunny and 92 degrees. I will have a better idea then what our athletes might expect for race conditions. In addition, both my wife and I were surprised to see a lack of face masks on everyday people in the streets. We were told they were used during the SARS breakout, but not much after that. This is indeed a good sign.
