Beijing: Olympic road race to be postponed?

Olympic broadcasters around the world have been sent into panic as Games organisers warned them there was a chance the men’s cycling road race may be postponed because of smog.

Read more. I guess we’ll know for sure tomorrow morning.

Related news:

  • WIRED compares the air in Beijing with previous Olympic host cities.
  • USA Today: The smog endangers residents much more than temporary residents. BBC tested the PM10 (particulate matter) levels at 191 µg/l³. To compare, the San Francisco Bay Area exceeded California PM10 levels of 50 µg/l³ three days during the winter of 2007/2008. Beyond 50 µg/l³, the air is so thick with smoke it’s difficult for me to exert myself without choking on phlegm.
  • there’s definitely something in the air,” says Dave Z. “It’s like that Lynyrd Skynyrd song. ‘Oooh that smell. Can’t you smell that smell? Oooh that smell.'”
  • IOL in South Africa: The Slog Amid the Smog.

    The skies were grey and the air thick around the Olympic precinct as the South African team of Robbie Hunter, John-Lee Augustyn and David George rolled around the city’s packed roads, loosening their legs.

    They will take part in the first medal event of the Beijing Olympic Games, the men’s road race on Saturday, which takes in some of the more prominent landmarks of the city before, thankfully some of the cyclists have said, heading out of the city for the serious racing near the Great Wall of China.

  • On IOC president Jacques Rogge’s claim that what they’re seeing in Beijing is not smog, but fog: “I live in San Francisco, and this is not fog. Fog is weather — it rolls in. This just stagnates and is ripping years from my life.

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