Contra my earlier prediction, Beijing’s smog cleared up on the last day of the Olympics and Kenyan Samuel Kamau Wanjiru promptly broke the Olympic record by 3 minutes. It’s nice to see that the Chinese got some return from the car bans and shut down factories.
Crow
by Tim F| 7 Comments
This post is in: Sports, Did You Know John McCain Was A POW?
cleek
Beijing, before and after
Jake
Nonetheless, I think we’d be wise to monitor his respiratory health in the near future.
cgp
I’m guessing that a world class athelete is going to have no problem recovering from what in all reality amounts to a very short exposure to nominally raised levels of pollution.
I wouldn’t fault Tim for all the hysteria surrounding the pollution in China though. Many “respectable” people were touting this, and it’s looking like nonsense now.
As someone who has run marathons, what they did was incredible if you just consider the heat and the humidity in Beijing that day. Great run by everyone involved. As a team, the US came in second, a really strong showing. Lets hope this continues!
Crusty Dem
told ya. Ok, even I never expected 2:06.
seriously, people have survived much worse than Beijing, coal mines, London in the 1800s, etc..
Tim F.
You should accept that you are simply wrong about this. Pollution in Beijing before the drastic steps that China took for the Olympics is not comparable to anything in America except possibly Pittsburgh in the 50s. The fact that they improved it does not change what it was and soon will be again.
Jon H
Day by day pollution readings and photos of the Beijing skyline, from the BBC.
Ken
I live in Shanghai. Apparently, the chinese government has allowed it to rain, because Shanghai is now completely flooded.