The iconic national stadium, the Bird’s Nest in Beijing was barely visible through smog on Thursday (July 24), despite last-ditch attempts to turn the smokey and dusty Chinese capital into the promised pollution-free Olympic venue. The temperature was forecast to be around 34 degrees Celsius with 79 percent humidity.
    The Beijing Ministry for Environmental Protection was still showing data from Wednesday (July 23) when the Chinese Air Pollution Index (API) showed a reading of API 89. This figure is valid up until 1200 local (0300 GMT) the present day, but the air quality on Thursday was visibly even worse than the day before.
    API 89 is still grade two in the Chinese system, meaning “comparatively good”, and counts as a “blue sky day” in Beijing.
    Environmental experts have in the past cast doubts on the Beijing’s claims of improvement in air quality, particularly the much-vaunted “blue sky days” tally that the authorities use to measure the improvement. Beijing says the blue sky index is aimed at helping Beijing residents understand the differences in air quality.
    The city’s chronic pollution has been one of the biggest headaches for Games organisers. On Sunday the authorities have restricted traffic and called a halt to all building work, giving the construction dust a few weeks to settle before the Opening Ceremony.

 see the latest smogwatch video from around the Olympic Green here

Racing at the Olympics was a kind of out-of-body experience for me. I remember my runs more like hallucinations than real experiences.

The pressure was so great and the adrenaline so overwhelming that mind and body separated and led separate lives.

It was always best to avoid me before races but at the Olympics, I was nearly delirious from the pressure. My body would tremble for days before the race and my mind couldn’t escape thinking through my race plan over and over again. I probably ran the 800 in my head a thousand times before setting foot on the track.

In the stadium, my senses grew numb, the world slowed, colours disappeared and sounds blurred.

I know there were a 100,000 people in the stadium but I couldn’t see them. I know they rumbled but I couldn’t hear them. All I saw were eight lanes and seven competitors and all I could smell was the unmistakable odor of the track.

Once the gun went off, the world grew nearly silent. All I heard were spikes clacking, the wind rushing and my heart pounding.

When I crossed the finish line, the magic would come once again Colours, sounds and smells returned. The joy of accomplishment released my mind and body from its trap immediately and for the first time I was able to apprecite how great the Olympics really are.

The Olympics are addictive. Before I raced, I wished I was sitting in the stands, just watching. But in Beijing, I’ll be in the stands and wish I was on the track. It’s a vicious circle. The adrenaline is a hallucinogen, in the best sense of the word.

The tension, the climax and the release are so tremendous that when it’s over, you wish you could start all over again.

Balazs Koranyi was an Olympic semi-finalist in the 800 at the 1996 and 2000 Games for Hungary and since 2004 has been a Budapest-based correspondent, covering mainly political and business news. He will cover the Beijing Games for Reuters.  

Picture of crowd at Sydney Olympic stadium in 2000 by Mike Blake.

Despite last-ditch attempts to turn the smokey and dusty Chinese capital into the promised pollution-free Olympic venue, smog still shrouded the iconic national stadium, the Bird’s Nest on Wednesday (July 23). The temperature on Wednesday was forecast to be around 30 degrees Celsius with 66 percent humidity.    The Beijing Ministry for Environmental Protection was still showing data from Tuesday (July 22) when the Chinese Air Pollution Index (API) showed a reading of API 66. This figure is valid up until 1200 local (0300 GMT) the present day, but the air quality on Wednesday was visibly worse than the day before.

    API 66 is grade two in the Chinese system, meaning “comparatively good”, and counts as a “blue sky day” in Beijing.

    Environmental experts have in the past cast doubts on the Beijing’s claims of improvement in air quality, particularly the much-vaunted “blue sky days” tally that the authorities use to measure the improvement. Beijing says the blue sky index is aimed at helping Beijing residents understand the differences in air quality.

    The city’s chronic pollution has been one of the biggest headaches for Games organisers. In addition to traffic restrictions the city has called a halt to all building work, giving the construction dust a few weeks to settle before the Opening Ceremony.

    On Sunday (July 20),  the city imposed restrictions designed to almost halve the traffic on roads and stop construction work. With 3.3 million cars and more than 1,000 new cars hitting the street every day, Beijing is fast becoming one of the world’s most congested cities. Cars will be banned on alternate days according to whether their license plate ends in an odd or even number. Officials estimate traffic emissions will decrease by 63 percent.

    Construction sites in rapidly developing Beijing are also blamed for the poor air quality, which has led some to dub the city “Grayjing”.

See the latest smogwatch video from around the Olymoic Green here

China calls the Olympics the “Dream of a Century” and is ferverishly trimming hedges, planting flowers and splashing new coats of paint on rusty lamp posts and fences all over Beijing to present a modern and healthy image.

If you’re a cynic — a common pastime for foreigners in Beijing — you might say the billions being spent on the Games could be put to better use educating or improving the lives of hundreds of millions of farmers in China’s vast countryside.

But what the hey, I live in Beijing and I like flowers!

For the most part, even the heavy handed pre-Olympic security crackdown, the extra police checks, warnings of terrorist threats and bar closings don’t bother me that much.

After all, this IS the Olympics and this IS China, and there really could be people out there who want to do bad things this summer.

But what does bother me is that Beijing’s finest have decided they need to close down my favourite DVD store, and apparently many others, indefinitely … because of the Olympics.

Besides depriving me of watching the Joker battle Batman this weekend, I would think that an executive at a major film studio who loses billions of dollars due to pirated DVDs would be disturbed by this news.

If police can close these shops — apparently with little problem — for the Olympics, what about the other 40-some weeks of the year?

So after the Games will it be Batman Returns, or will he disappear like, well, a bat out of hell and rusty signposts?

Picture of Beijing DVD store by Claro Cortes IV

You’d have to have a heart of stone not to feel for Dirk Nowitzki. After 12 years of spending his summer holidays playing basketball for Germany in the hope of one day making it to the Olympics, the Dallas Mavericks forward led his country into the tournament when they got third place — and the last ticket to Beijing — in a qualifying tournament on Sunday in Athens. 

Nowitzki cried tears of joy after Germany beat Puerto Rico 96-82 in the match for third place after they had lost to Croatia on Saturday night. He  buried his face in a towel while walking off the court after scoring 32 points and cried and then sat in the locker-room and wept  some more as journalists watched and waited for the chance to talk to him. “I needed to be alone for a bit at first,” Nowitzki said later.

He may be one of the richest sportsmen ever in Germany, earning many millions of dollars each year. But his tears of happiness were a moving reminder that there is something larger at stake. Even if basketball isn’t a very big sport in Germany — far behind not only soccer but also ranking below motor racing, handball and even water polo on many sports pages — Nowitzki’s emotion-filled achievement was the big story on Monday. ”A dream has really come true,” Nowitzki said. “I still can’t believe it. It’s an incredible feeling because we’ve all waited so long for it. I’m so happy and so proud. I was really tired at the end and a bit emotional. I just came unglued.”

But Nowitzki and his teammates were all smiles again on Monday. They went to German Olympic headquarters to pick up some team uniforms for the Opening Ceremony but had a hard time finding suits that would fit. “I heard the shot putters were here before us and snatched away all the suits in our size,” Nowitzki said. “Now some of us are going to have to run around Beijing with a bare midriff.”

Germany has had one of the world’s top 10 basketball teams for years, in no small part due to Nowitzki. They won the bronze medal at the 2002 world championships in Indianapolis, second at the 2005 European championships and fourth in Europe in 2001. But they always came up tantalisingly short in the pre-Olympic years in the qualifying for Sydney and Athens. But Nowitzki never gave up dreaming about walking into an Olympic stadium for the Opening Ceremony, even after Germany failed once again to qualify in 2007. The tickets they collected on Sunday in Athens were their very last chance for Germany’s first Olympic qualification since 1992.

“I’ve been watching the Olympics on TV ever since I can remember,” Nowitzki said in a recent interview in Berlin after a tune-up match against Poland. “The Opening Ceremony, the Olympic flame, the whole thing just fascinates me.” With Nowitzki now bound for Beijing, the whole thing fascinates me even more. 

Pix from top: Nowitzki (R) tries to score against Puerto Rico’s Alex Falcon during their FIBA Olympic qualifying basketball game in Athens. And Nowitzki hugs Demond Greene next to Robert Garrett (2nd L). Photos by Yiorgos Karahalis.

The most democratic event at the Beijing Olympics may be the 800 metres run.

It’s the race (almost) anybody can win. It doesn’t matter what country you come from, what your skin color is or what your personal best is. It’s the event with no favourites.

When I competed as a middle distance runner, I was told too many times that I was in the wrong event because there was just no way I could compete against East and North African runners.

A silly argument, I always thought.  But if you look around, there are indeed some events that are almost reserved for some countries. In the men’s steeplechase, a Kenyan has won the last six Olympic titles and Kenyans would probably consider it a tragedy if they lost in Beijing.

In the men’s 100 meters, it would be difficult to imagine a runner from outside the U.S. or the Caribbean winning.

But the 800 is different and has a rich history to prove it.

You can be white European (Yuriy Borzakovskiy in 2004), African (William Tanui in 1992) or Arab (Rashid Ramzi at the 2005 World Championships), you can still win.

You can be the favourite (Maria Mutola in 2000) or an outsider (Nils Schumann in 2000) but if you make it to the finals, the world can be yours. In fact, being the favourite doesn’t help. Just ask Wilson Kipketer, the world record holder, who was upset by Schumann.

You can be a sprinter and move up (Alberto Juantorena in 1976) or a distance runner moving down (Steve Ovett in 1980), the 800 is your event.

The 800 combines speed, endurance and tactics in a way that strengths and weaknesses even out and runners rarely gain untouchable status.

The most common cliché in sport is that on any given day, any athlete can win. Sure, but I wouldn’t bet too much money against, let’s say, pole vaulter Yelena Isinbayeva in Beijing.

In the 800, on the other hand, the cliché is true.

Balazs Koranyi was an Olympic semi-finalist in the 800 at the 1996 and 2000 Games for Hungary and since 2004 has been a Budapest-based correspondent, covering mainly political and business news. He will cover the Beijing Games for Reuters.  

Pictures (from top) Borzakovskiy wins in Athens by Nigel Marple, Ramzi wins at Helsinki worlds by Gary Hershorn and Wilson Kipketer takes gold at the 2002 Europeans  by Wolfgang Rattay 

    With just three weeks to go before the opening ceremony of the Summer Olympics, the blue sky which had been seen over the Bird’s Nest National Stadium in Beijing recently, was giving way to smog again.
    The Beijing Ministry for Environmental Protection was still showing data from Thursday (July 17) when the Chinese Air Pollution Index (API) showed a reading of API 77. This figure is valid up until 1200 local (0300 GMT), but the air quality at 0800 local time (0000 GMT) on Friday (July 18) was visibly much worse than the day before, when a blue sky could be seen over the Bird’s Nest.
    API 77 is grade 2 in the Chinese system, meaning “comparatively good”, and counts as a “blue sky day” in Beijing. On Friday, the sky was dull at 0800gmt just before it started to pour with rain in Beijing, with the temperature at 27 degrees and 78 percent humidity.
    Beijing has spent 140 billion yuan ($20.34 billion U.S. dollars) on environmental improvements over the last decade, the problem persists, however, particularly when there is no wind or rainy weather - as there will be in August.  Further measures start this weekend, when Beijing will close more factories and force 19 heavy polluters to reduce emissions by 30 percent from July 20. 
    The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has said it might reschedule endurance events such as the marathon to prevent health risks to athletes competing for more than an hour.
    See the latest video of air quality conditions around the Olympic Green here

With just three weeks to go before the opening ceremony of the Summer Olympics, the blue sky which had been seen over the Bird’s Nest National Stadium in Beijing recently, was giving way to smog again.

The Beijing Ministry for Environmental Protection was still showing data from Thursday (July 17) when the Chinese Air Pollution Index (API) showed a reading of API 77. This figure is valid up until 1200 local (0300 GMT), but the air quality at 0800 local time (0000 GMT) on Friday (July 18) was visibly much worse than the day before, when a blue sky could be seen over the Bird’s Nest.

API 77 is grade 2 in the Chinese system, meaning “comparatively good”, and counts as a “blue sky day” in Beijing. On Friday, the sky was dull at 0800gmt just before it started to pour with rain in Beijing, with the temperature at 27 degrees and 78 percent humidity.

Check out the air quality around the Olympic Green almost live in this video footage here 

These spectacular pictures of the fireworks during Wednesday’s rehearsal for the August 8 Olympic opening ceremony hint that it might fulfill the huge expectations the Chinese people have for it.

 

  

 

Pictures by Reinhard Krause, Jason Lee, Alfred Jin, Grace Liang and Joe Chan

It’s 35 degrees out, I’m late, hot and in a rush. When the security guard stops me at the gate to a compound I’ve entered a million times before during my four years in Beijing, I begin to curse the Olympics under my breath.  

The number of daily hassles in the city is mounting as the Games draw nearer. I now have enough passes and ID cards to open a small shop.

They include my main Olympics accreditation, my office ID and swipe card, a new photo ID to enter my apartment
block and I’ve been carrying my passport since police began enforcing a long-standing Chinese law that foreigners must have them on their person at all times.

Several friends have had house-calls from their neighbourhood police, making sure they are properly registered and in some cases requiring they register again for good measure.

Having never been in my local police station before this year, I am now a regular there, checking in each time I re-enter the country after a trip abroad in accordance with newly enforced rules.      

There are now X-ray machines at subway stations, compounding the morning rush, and police checkpoints at entrances to the city, where cars and their passengers are scrutinised for anything that might threaten Beijing’s Olympics-level security.      

The amazing part of all of this is not that it exists — a certain level of security is to be expected with any huge event, and in a host country that frowns on popular protest, even more zealous checks are no surprise. But to me what is incredible is how little it seems to bother the citizens it most affects.

While I feel my heart begin to speed with irritation at the mere sight of a checkpoint, Beijingers seem to be displaying remarkable forebearance in the face of these disruptions to their daily routine.

“If there are a lot of cars the wait can be long, but it’s for Olympics security so everyone is very understanding,” one man told me in the queue at a checkpoint just outside the city.

“Even with the heat today, look around, no one is very irritated,” he said.

Sure enough, no other drivers I spoke to seemed the least bit vexed, and bus passengers filed out and queued without a fuss to present their identification at the police window.

Perhaps there is a lesson here for the impatient Westerner in their midst. 

Pictures by Jason Lee