Posted Tue Jul 29, 2008 7:40am AEST
The Netherlands’ Olympic football coach has described the smog in Beijing as “awful” as his team prepared in Hong Kong for the Games next month.
Coach Foppe de Haan said his side had trained in a special gym back home to prepare them for the hot and humid conditions in Hong Kong and mainland China, but he admitted there was no way of replicating the smog.
“That’s a problem,” de Haan said at a press conference ahead of a four-team pre-Olympic tournament where the Dutch are expected to prove why they are one of the favourites for gold in Beijing.
“I heard today if you are trying to look at the Olympic stadium (in Beijing), you can’t see it from 500 metres. It’s awful, I think.”
But de Haan said their team doctor had told him the players would adapt.
“The doctor told us if you spend five days there it will no longer be a problem because you get used to it.
“The doctor also said even if you don’t have asthma there in Holland you can have it here. But that’s no problem and we can handle it.”
The Netherlands play Cameroon on Wednesday, followed by Ivory Coast on Saturday.
The fourth team competing is the United States.
-AFP