Pollution intruded on celebrations to mark the one-year countdown to Beijing’s Olympics on Wednesday when Games chief Jacques Rogge said events might have to be rescheduled if air quality is not up to scratch.
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) president reiterated that overall he was happy with preparations but that some competitions might have to be moved if continuing efforts by organisers to clean up the air were unsuccessful.
”This is an option,” Rogge told CNN. ”It would not be necessary for all sports … but definitely the endurance sports like the cycling race where you have to compete for six hours, these are examples of competitions that might be postponed or delayed to another day.”
The most intensely scrutinised preparations for any Games in Olympic history has brought forth a barrage of criticism for communist-ruled China this week on issues such as human rights, press freedom, pollution, food safety and Tibet.
Starting with a mass display of early morning exercises, the Chinese people finally got their chance to express their pride in the most important sporting and cultural event ever held in the country.
More than a million Beijingers made their way to the city’s parks as sunshine broke through the smog for the first time this week.
”We’re very excited, very happy to have the Olympic Games in China,” said one women pensioner, wiping make-up from her face after taking part in a display of traditional folk dancing in Chaoyang Park.
”Thirty years ago, we would never have thought that we could host such an event. China was not strong enough to host the Olympics, but now we are.”
Another women, catching her breath after a display of aerobics, said: ”This is a dream that has lasted for a century.
”We want foreigners to discover Chinese culture and to know that China is a strong country now.”
Questions about pollution were answered with a shrug and the assurance that ”it’s much better than it used to be”. Censorship has ensured that most people are unaware of critical human rights reports, many of which say China has failed to live up to its promises on press freedom.
Tight security
Six Westerners were still detained a day after unfurling a banner reading ”One World, One Dream, Free Tibet” at the Great Wall, the Free Tibet Campaign said in a statement. China is often criticised for its harsh rule of the Himalayan region it occupied in 1950.
The chance of protests means security will be tight at the main event of the day, a gala celebration in front of 10 000 people on Tiananmen Square, where troops put down the 1989 pro-democracy demonstrations with huge loss of life.
Rogge will be on hand with Chinese political leaders to watch a countdown clock run down to exactly 366 days to go — 2008 is a leap year — at 8.08 pm local time (12.08pm GMT) on the eighth day of the eighth month, an auspicious date and time.
The Belgian will also host a ceremony in which more than 200 countries and regions will be formally invited to take part in next year’s Games.
The first of 26 test events being held in Beijing this year also got under way on Wednesday with the opening heats of the world junior rowing championships at a brand new venue an hour outside the city.
Not everybody in the city was wrapped up in the one-year countdown, however. Wang Jingjing, an eight-year-old newly arrived in the capital from a rural part of neighbouring Hebei, said she had never heard of the Olympics. – Reuters