I note with interest the news that Ethopia's Haile Gebrselassie, the world's best marathon runner, has declined to compete at the "Beijing" Olympics, citing as his explanation the unbelievably heavy pollution in which he'd have to run for several hours. Like many top athletes, he suffers from exercise-induced asthma and Peking's smog is just about the worst thing in which he could exercise at full pelt for an afternoon.
Sounds reasonable enough to me. Indeed, his position is not without support - the IOC has stated that it may need to postpone or even cancel endurance events if China's pollution remains at the current levels.
This must be troubling for the climate change crusaders, though - on the one hand, *elevates pollution as an issue* = GOOD; but on the other, *offers credence to the anti-Kyoto lobby who pointed to the uber-pollution in China as a reason not to sign up* = BAD. We'll see what they do with the story (which may be the first of several). My prediction is, um, silence.
Note: for explanation of quotation marks on "Beijing" see the disclaimer on the foot of a previous post here.
