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Annually, Beijing is one of the world's most polluted cities - in fact, in 2006, China was home to 16 of the 20 cities with the worst air, according to the World Bank. The Chinese government has issued notices ordering pollutant-emitting factories in Beijing and surrounding cities to slow work from late July through the end of the Games. Chinese officials also pledged to curtail operations of some of the region's mills and mines.
Actually, this is the ramping up of a $20 billion, 6-year initiative that includes holding industry more accountable for its pollution; phasing down coal burning in general; increasing public-transit options and making it a more attractive, cheaper option; and selling cleaner gasoline and diesel fuel.
"After we fully implement all of the Olympic measures, it will be no problem for the air quality to meet acceptable standards," Zhang Lijun, deputy director of China's State Environmental Protection Agency, said in March.
Indeed, it could work.
"It's absolutely possible," said William H. Brune, who chairs the meteorology department at Penn State. Brune specializes in the fundamental chemistry of air quality. He has closely followed the Olympic air-quality issue, and looks southeast of State College for an example - to the often muggy, dirty air in the state's largest city.
"You can get a sense of this, if you think about Philadelphia, and how a Canadian front can come through and clear that air out," Brune said. "For Beijing's local surroundings - even if they shut things down for just a couple of weeks - it's absolutely possible."
Other factors could contribute, Bruce noted, such as dust storms from surrounding deserts and the local heat and humidity that, in August, is similar to that in Philadelphia. Furthermore, Beijing is bordered on three sides by mountains, creating a basin that traps pollutants.
However, if China's efforts remain constant, blue skies could prevail during the Games.
Beginning July 20, about half of the city's 3.3 million cars will be banned each day: Cars with license plates ending in an odd number can run on odd days, even-numbered plates run on even days. As many as 70 percent of government vehicles will be off the roads during that time, as well. Dusty construction projects in the city will be limited.
The U.S. Olympic Committee is optimistic. China ran a 4-day test run last August in which 800,000 cars were removed from the road, with positive, if limited, results. Similar efforts were made in 2006, when Beijing hosted a summertime economic summit.
"Two years ago, at a summit in Beijing, for 10 days, the skies were blue and the air quality was as good as we've seen in other cities," said Steve Roush, the USOC chief of sport performance.
He noted that athletes are being aggressively screened for asthma and that specially designed masks will be available for athletes to wear during their stay in China. However, Roush made it clear that the athletes would be discouraged from wearing masks during competition or at the very visible opening ceremony. Such a slight would be massively insulting to the Chinese.
Other countries are being less sensitive.
To avoid any smog-related ailments, most of the Australian track and field athletes will not march in the opening ceremony Aug. 8 and will remain in Hong Kong to train until the meat of their schedule begins Aug. 15. Similarly, the entire British team will train in Macau until those athletes are called upon to compete. Both locations are about as far from Beijing as New York City is from Miami.
There are horror stories of runners struggling to breathe during long-distance runs; of athletes needing several days off to recover from breathing the dirty air during trips to Beijing; of participants blowing their noses and seeing soot on the tissue. Haile Gebrselassie, an asthmatic Ethiopian favored to win a second straight gold medal in the marathon, has decided to skip the 42-kilometer event and run only in the less taxing 10,000 meters.
But this is the Olympics. Unlike Gebrselassie, who plans to run the marathon in London in 2012, for many, this could be their one shot.
With that in mind, most of the athletes seem resigned to dealing with the problem, whatever its degree.
"It was pretty bad," said Jarrod Shoemaker, 25, a triathlete who has raced in China each of the past 3 years. "It was worse the last two times. I definitely felt it when I wasn't racing. You can taste it. You can feel the grit in your teeth. In 2007, we wore masks when we weren't racing."
That said, Shoemaker, from Sudbury, Mass., doesn't think the air hurt his performances.
"It affected me most 2 days after I got back," he said.
Germophobic slugger Crystl Bustos was prepared for the worst when Team USA played in the world softball championships in Beijing in 2006. It never came.
"They freaked me out about the weather. I didn't even want to come out of the hotel. I'm like a germ freak like that. Me and Howie [Mandel] should be friends," said Bustos, 30, of Canyon Country, Calif. "It wasn't bad. They gave us these masks to wear; nobody used them we walked around."
It might have been worse a few years ago.
A United Nations Environment Program report issued in October acknowledged that Beijing had made strides in cleaning its air and water and in reforesting the city and the region, but noted that plenty remained to be done.
The Chinese paint a sunnier face on their efforts. They say "blue sky days" in Beijing increased from 100 in 1998 to 245 last year.
However, experts have accused Beijing of manipulating air-quality statistics by omitting readings at especially dirty sites whose readings once were included in reports.
Generally, environmentalists see Beijing hosting the games as a possible remedy . . . and a possible sham that will disappear when the international community exits a staged and insincere effort.
Some don't think the government will continue to address the problem of chronically polluted rivers, whose waters cannot even be used to wash, and overtaxed underground water reserves whose capacities will be further depleted by 2.5 million visitors to the city of 17 million.
And what happens when the factories, mills and mines get turned back on?
For most Olympics observers, as long as the Michael Phelpses and Tyson Gays are on their way back home, the issue won't be their concern. *
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