It's a hot August day with temperatures hovering near triple digits, and a thick coal-smog mixed with exhaust fumes surrounds a city of more than 17 million people. No, this isn't a bad air day in Los Angeles. It's worse.
Welcome to the Beijing 2008 Summer Olympics, and don't forget to strap on your dust masks.
As Beijing, the air-pollution capital of the world, prepares to host the Olympics for the first time, Chinese government officials are coming up with ideas to improve the air that often blocks out the glare of the sun. Meanwhile, athletes from around the world are taking precautions to combat the filthy air, and some are refusing to participate.
Ethiopian distance runner Haile Gebrselassie, world record marathoner, has decided to skip the event because of the health risks associated with Beijing's notorious air, he said.
"The pollution in China is a threat to my health, and it would be difficult for me to run 42 kilometers in my current condition," he told Reuters.
Call me crazy, but if the world's best marathoner is afraid of potential hazards to his health - remember he's probably in better shape than you or anyone you know - I think I would be afraid of competing. However, not everyone is worrying about the world's worst air, including Chico State's best hope to qualify for the Olympics.
Distance runner Scott Bauhs knows what it's like to run in poor air. He trained during the Plumas National Forest's Moonlight Fire in 2007, which left Chico's air looking like Beijing's.
Bauhs said if he runs well enough in the U.S. Olympic Team Trials this summer and qualifies for Beijing, he won't boycott the games. In fact, the media is over-hyping the situation in Beijing, he said.
"I've heard the air quality from the L.A. Olympic games was worse," Bauhs said of the 1984 Summer Olympics.
Media coverage aside, the Chinese government is promising clean air in August and it is playing with Mother Nature to make good on its end of the deal. Chinese scientists have been researching techniques that will produce rain showers they hope will wash away pollutants, The Associated Press reported.
The Chinese are also planning to keep millions of cars off the road during the Olympics, using a license plate system to decide who can and can't drive on certain days, The New York Times reported.
All things considered, Beijing's air sucks and chances are it will suck in August.
Beijing's air quality can be attributed to the recent boom in automobile sales and the tons of coal burned by a growing industrial economy. Plus, Beijing is surrounded on three sides by mountains that force pollution to inconveniently gather around China's capital city.
According to a 2007 World Health Organization report, diseases caused by China's air quality contributed to an estimated 656,000 deaths that year. By comparison, 41,200 deaths are caused by toxic air pollutants in the United States annually.
Can you really blame anyone for not wanting to run in a stadium filled with carbon monoxide so thick even fans will be wearing masks?
Some American athletes have been advised to wear dust masks as soon as they get off the plane, and many won't arrive in Beijing until just three days before their event.
Maybe the athletes just need to suck it up and train a little harder. Perhaps Bauhs should train by chasing city buses around town, taking in that sweet Beijing-like air - I mean exhaust.
Now, I'm no super-conditioned athlete like Bauhs, but I was in Chico during the Moonlight Fire and Chico smelled like a campfire for about three days - running was the last thing on my mind.
Needless to say, come August, I will be watching Bauhs and the rest of the Olympics on my couch with a cold Budweiser, minus the dust mask.
Nick Cahill can be reached at ncahill@theorion.com
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