Warning: Olympics can seriously damage your health

It’s often said that the best vantage point for watching live sport can be found not in the stadium itself but from the television screen in your living room.

With media coverage at saturation point it’s hard to disagree but, as anyone that’s attended live sport knows, it’s impossible to replicate the atmosphere and drama in your living room no matter how many beers you might consume during the course of the rhythmic gymnastics final.

However, it seems that the Beijing Olympics may be the event that really puts this old adage to the test. With my BBC licence fee being put to spectacularly good use this year and paying for almost all programs to be broadcast ‘live from Beijing’ I have noticed that during the news bulletin on some days the Olympic stadium, nicknamed the ‘Bird's Nest’, is hardly visible at all over the newsreader’s shoulder. The Chinese are adamant that this is a combination of; heat haze, fog and too many fireworks but everyone else is calling it pollution. Concerned? If I can’t see the stadium with the powerful all-seeing eye of television then what hope has the humble paying spectator got?

Come to think of it – this lack of visibility and pollution could also present a problem for the athletes and apparently that’s what the Olympics are all about anyway. The American cycling team were quick to highlight this when they landed at Beijing airport with four of them wearing facemasks. Now I don’t know how bad the pollution levels are at baggage collection but the point was made.

In a bid to redress the PR balance Jacques Rogge, famous Belgian and head of the International Olympic Committee, went out of his way to praise Beijing for their efforts at cutting pollution. Apparently, there is "absolutely no danger" to the health of athletes taking part in events that last less than one hour. Not so reassuring for marathon runners then.

Rogge continued fanning the flames in much the way that only the head of an international sports organisation can, “I think objectively we can see that the Chinese authorities have done everything that is feasible and humanly possible to address the situation. What they have done is extraordinary. And you know what they have done? Planting millions of trees between the Gobi desert and Beijing. Removing hundreds of thousands of polluting cars.” Okay so far but they did create the problem in the first place. Jacques continued, “Removing very polluting factories to other regions of the country.” Ouch. And do you know what? Jacques is right. Beijing isn’t even the most polluted city in China – it was ranked seventh before they even started construction on the Olympic site.

Beijing’s air quality may be below that demanded by the World Health Organisation of developing countries but it isn’t the only Olympic city to have suffered from pollution. There were similar fears about Seoul and Athens and readers of more advanced years will remember the ‘pea soup’ smog that enveloped London and dissipated only following government intervention in the 1950s. Maybe one day the residents of Beijing will be able to consign to history the bird’s nest souper as the Londoners did the pea souper. In the meantime I don’t want anything obstructing my view from the couch or I’ll actually have to consider attending a sporting event to see what’s happening. Bring on the dressage.

DS