Anyone wondering how convinced athletes are by Beijing's efforts to clear its smoggy air for the Olympics need only check their travelling luggage.
Despite years of official reassurance, many of the top teams will be packing breathing accessories or timing their arrival for the last possible moment. Haile Gebrselassie, the asthmatic holder of the men's marathon world record, has withdrawn from the event in Beijing though he still plans to compete in the 10,000m.
The Russian Olympic Committee says its strategy is to keep athletes indoors as much as possible and several teams wil be doing final training in Russia's far east instead of Beijing. The committee's Gennady Shwets said air pollution in Beijing was “certainly an important factor for our national team”.
Australian track and field athletes will put off their arrival until the second week of the games. Most Australian Olympians will fly into Beijing three days before the start of the games from training camps in Kuala Lumpur, Hong Kong and Darwin, with about half the athletes expected to attend the opening ceremony.
“They feel they can't train in Beijing,” said Mike Tancred, of the Australian Olympic Committee. The squad will be looked after by 80 medical experts, the biggest medical team Australia has taken to an Olympics.
David Martin, an exercise physiologist working with American marathon runners, said the sheer quantity of pollution in Beijing set it apart from any prior summer games, adding that the combination of pollution and humidity would set athletes a “double whammy”.
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