View from the Bird's Nest » Alister Doyle http://blogs.reuters.com/china The Reuters Olympic Blog Sun, 07 Sep 2008 14:42:44 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.3.3 en Of oranges and Olympics http://blogs.reuters.com/environment/2008/02/27/of-oranges-and-olympics/ http://blogs.reuters.com/environment/2008/02/27/of-oranges-and-olympics/#comments Wed, 27 Feb 2008 17:30:15 +0000 Alister Doyle http://blogs.reuters.com/environment/2008/02/27/of-oranges-and-olympics/ Customers buy oranges at a supermarket in Changchun, northeast China’s Jilin province November 1, 2007. China will keep striving to prevent the economy from overheating and to stave off broad-based inflation, Vice Premier Zeng Peiyan said in remarks reported on Thursday by the official Xinhua news agencyWhat have oranges got to do with winning an Olympic gold medal in polluted Beijing?

Try this great feature by Deborah Zabarenko to find out.

The world's athletes, training for years for the Games, are trying to find how to avoid wheezing their way through events.

Masks, special diets, or training camps in Japan are all part of the answer.

Beijing is not the first smoggy city to hold the Olympics -- pollution was a worry in Seoul in 1988 and in Los Angeles in 1984.

So maybe the Olympics should only be held in "clean" cities?

Or maybe the Olympics will -- long after any coughing athletes have left -- benefit the health of millions of people living in Beijing because China is trying to crack down on air pollution?

What do you think?

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