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Planning For Beijing

By Dr. Randy Wilber, Karen Daigle and Catherine Sellers, USOC Coaching and Sport Sciences

The Beijing Olympic Games will have very unique challenges for the American athlete, coach and spectator. The concerns regarding these Games will not be about the readiness of the facilities. Approximately 60% of the stadium appears to be done with the Chinese using over 110 thousand tons of steel and over 2,000 welders per day working on the “Bird’s Nest” design. In fact, the designs for the facilities are spectacular with the majority of the competitions taking place in the “Olympic Green”, a green space of parks and lakes with one of the world’s largest re-forestation projects taking place.

After a recent visit to Beijing by national team coaches and team directors, the USOC has identified three critical areas of concerns that will need to be addressed by NGB’s, coaches and athletes:

1. Environmental issues
2. Food
3. Transportation

Environmental Issues

Beijing appears to be one of the most polluted cities in the World. According to Dr. Randy Wilber, USOC Senior Physiologist, the pollution is a combination of dust, carbon monoxide, nitrogen dioxide, sulfur dioxide and ozone. The dust comes from two sources. The first source is the Gobi desert. Just days prior to our visit, over 30 tons of dust was dropped on Beijing by a Gobi dust storm. Typically, these storms hit in the spring, so they may not be a factor during the Games. The second source is caused by the amazing amount of construction being done in Beijing. It was reported that over 50% of the world’s largest building cranes are located in Beijing. All the building leaves piles of dirt around the city, which they try to control by covering the mounds with green tarps, but none the less they are a significant source for dust.

Carbon monoxide is the major concern in regards to athlete performance. It’s colorless, odorless and tasteless and has the potential to destroy an athlete’s hard worked for competition.

Dr. Wilber’s samples of Beijing air at various venues show pollution levels in the 6-7 range on a scale of ten, the Olympic Green was tested with a range of 4 to 5 and some of the outlying venues were below 5. To provide you with a comparison, Los Angeles is around 5.

However, China does have a plan to reduce the pollution levels. They will shut down factories prior to the start of the Games and they have mentioned the “seeding” of clouds for rain to reduce the dust. Cloud seeding may not be necessary as August is the month with the most rainfall. Typically, Beijing receives over seven inches of rain. Rainfall does lead to the next problem of high humidity.

Combining high humidity and heat provides the second major environmental issue. The average temperature in Beijing in August is 85.1 with a relative humidity of 69%. When the temperature and humidity is placed into the Heat Index Chart, it falls into the “Caution” category.

RECOMMENDATIONS:

* Don’t arrive in Beijing too early due to the environmental issues.
* Look at using a “Activated Carbon” Filtration mask and nasal irrigation to try and limit the effects of the pollutants.
* Make sure that your Olympic athletes have Pulmonary Function Testing (PFT). The conditions in Beijing may trigger Exercise Induced Asthma (EIA).

Food
Rice is one of the very few American Chinese foods that is actually similar to Chinese food found in China! For the most part, Chinese food will not be familiar to you or your athletes, so making intelligent food selections will be difficult. Identifying a familiar carbohydrate or protein source will be almost impossible when faced with the food options that will be available. Familiarity is key to performance nutrition at the elite level. You wouldn’t try a new competition strategy at the Games, so you certainly don’t want to try a new food product or nutrition strategy at the Games! Although there are a few familiar American restaurant chains in Beijing, relying on these few options are not the best nutrition plan.

RECOMMENDATIONS:

* Get help! If you don’t have a nutrition professional working with your team, identify a point of contact to coordinate nutrition issues.
* Have a plan. Once the menu has been made available, make sure someone qualified looks it over to ensure it will meet your team’s nutritional needs. Be prepared to supplement this menu with easily transportable products, if needed.
* If living out of the Village Food Service, consider hiring a personal chef for your team.

Transportation
For Americans who are use to the freedom of driving during competitions in Europe, this will be a challenge in China. Foreigners are not allowed to drive. In addition to that problem, large trucks are only allowed into Beijing between midnight and 6am, so delivery of equipment will be late (or early depending on your perspective).

Planning and scheduling transportation, along with drivers will be another consideration for team leaders and coaches. It may be necessary to develop a check list, so that the athlete and coaches will have all necessary equipment on hand when you leave the village or housing location.

Beijing has a metro system, although not very extensive. They will have a line built before the Games that will have a terminal in the “Olympic Green” area.

RECOMMENDATIONS:

* Plan travel with a built in cushion of time.
* Use Kirk Milburn’s adage of “Go early, be safe, and go early”.
* Prepare methods to communicate with drivers, who may or may not speak any English.
* Learn to use public transportation effectively.

The challenges of China may seem tremendous, but it will be offset by the amazing culture, rich traditions and the Olympic Games history of exciting competition. With adequate planning and understanding of the challenges, the athlete, coach and spectator can make the challenges work for them. As a current USOC slogan states, “Any Where, Any Time, We Will Be Ready.

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