Word: qingdao
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Concerns over environmental problems spoiling Beijing's Olympiad have usually centered on the city's air quality, but a new threat to the Games has materialized in the sea. The waters off the coastal city of Qingdao, the venue for the Olympic sailing events, have become choked with thick, green algae. The bloom snakes along the shore and covers a third of the Olympic course, according to the state-run Xinhua News Service - and the muck is making life difficult for sailors and windsurfers who have come to train ahead of their August events. For Qingdao, a former German concession...
...More than 10,000 troops and close to 100,000 volunteers have been deployed to battle the algae, says Gao Zhenhui, director of the State Oceanic Administration's North China Sea Environmental Monitoring Center in Qingdao. "At first we didn't realize how big it would be," Gao says. "We didn't think it would happen so fast." Last June, Qingdao saw an algae blooms that covered 27 square miles, and a second one in September covered three square miles. But those are dwarfed by the current algae bloom, which covers 154 square miles...
...natural phenomenon touched off a certain combination of nutrients in the water, and sunlight creates optimal growing conditions for algae - although they can be exacerbated by nutrient-rich runoff from farms, houses and factories. Thus far officials have downplayed the possibility of pollution as a factor in the Qingdao bloom. Wang Shulian, the deputy director of the Qingdao Oceanic and Fisheries Department, told reporters that there was no link to water quality, adding that the algae was aided by a combination of ideal temperature and salinity...
...push for medals can compel kids to suddenly start training in sports they didn't know existed before the coaches came calling. Last year Ding Liyan lined up with other students in his junior high school class to perform a peculiar test given by an official from the Qingdao City Sports School. He was asked to spread his palm and stack as many .22-cal. bullets on top of one another as he could. Ding managed a tower of eight--a feat of nervelessness, a quality essential in a competitive archer. "We're only interested in children who can pile...
...train-till-you-drop mentality derives, in part, from a physical-inferiority complex that's taken as fact in Chinese sports circles. "Chinese bodies are not as naturally strong as those of people from other countries," says Qingdao school principal Qiao, repeating what I am told by Sports Ministry officials. "But we can work harder than anyone else. That's our biggest advantage." Chinese women, in particular, are renowned for their ability to withstand brutal training. Unlike in the U.S., where the privatization of athletics means less money for women's sports--just compare the NBA with the WNBA...