Herald Sun – Ben English – July 29, 2008 12:00am
AUSSIE athletes will be allowed to withdraw from events if they believe Beijing’s smog to be a health hazard.
With Beijing again blanketed in a dirty haze yesterday, China announced it was planning more drastic measures to clean up the city before the Games begin next week.
The Australian Olympic Committee said it was taking the matter so seriously it would not stand in the way of Aussie competitors withdrawing from events.
“For us, the athletes’ attitude to the event is paramount,” AOC vice-president Peter Montgomery said after arriving in Beijing yesterday.
“They will be absolutely under no pressure to compete if they feel uneasy or don’t want to compete.”
But Montgomery added he did not expect any of our athletes to take such action.
“It would be extremely unlikely that an athlete would not want to compete, let me say,” he said.
“Most of the athletes have been training for 10 years for this moment.”
Montgomery warned the pollution could trigger unfamiliar and dangerous reactions for the athletes.
“There is also the possibility people may, under severe pressure, develop symptoms they have not had in the past,” he said.
“We think that is unlikely but our doctors have been all over this for our entire team.
“It will be a day-by-day sort of situation.”
The AOC policy comes after a Herald Sun survey of Australia’s Olympians found one in three had concerns about Beijing’s pollution.
But AOC secretary-general Craig Phillips said Australia might gain an advantage from Beijing’s cocktail of smog, heat and humidity as our team had prepared more thoroughly.
“We have done a lot on air quality, but also on heat and humidity,” Phillips said. “We have our recovery centre, ice vests and other measures.
“Also, a lot of our sports prepared for the heat changes, getting into northern Australia and going into South-East Asia in their training.
“We know most other countries are not doing it.”
China’s Olympic pollution crisis was not just in Beijing.
Equestrian horses had to exercise under filthy skies in Hong Kong yesterday.
But Beijing environmental officials said they were ready to implement an emergency plan to take 90 per cent of the city’s cars off the roads.
Only cars whose licence plates ended with the last digit of the date could travel.