frenchnounours

Pollution sparks Beijing rethink Smog partially obscures an Olympic Games sign in Beijing The UN claims Beijing's air quality will improve little before the Olympics The International Olympic Committee (IOC) will reschedule events at the 2008 Beijing Games if air pollution is a threat to athletes' health. In October a United Nations report said pollution in the Chinese capital was more than three times the safe limit. "If you have a risk you may have to decide to work on the rescheduling of the competition," said the Games' executive director Gilbert Felli. Felli confirmed any decisions would be made just prior to or during the Games. Beijing has already poured about $16bn into environmental programmes in an attempt to reduce pollution. Scores of factories have been dismantled or moved out of the city and thousands of high-polluting taxis and buses have been taken off the road. But with on-going construction and an estimated 1,000 new cars hitting the streets each day, the Beijing air has further deteriorated in quality. The UN report suggested in some cases pollution is more than three times the safe limits set by the World Health Organization and that it will not improve significantly before the Games, which begin on 8 August. The organisers have issued assurances that contingency plans are being drawn up based on the results of trials last August, when 1.3m vehicles were banned from the city's roads for four days. Other plans include halting busy construction during the Games as well as shutting down polluting plants. Felli said the latest figures on Beijing's air quality had been sent to the IOC. "We have just received the numbers but we have not analysed them," he said. "We are trying to understand with a medical commission how this type of air quality could affect the athletes. "The Chinese reassessed this morning that they still have to finalise some of the work promised during the bid and contingency plans at the time of the Games if air quality is not as we wish." Beijing's efforts to improve air quality include a "blue sky day" quota, referring to a targeted number of days with acceptable levels of pollution, a process dismissed by experts as unscientific. A campaign called "guard the blue sky" will involve inspectors cracking down on dusty construction sites, uncovered trucks and outdoor kebab vendors to "guarantee the smooth achievement" of the 2007 target of 244 blue sky days. ============================================================================= so what's your opiniona bout this?

If china can't host the games for some reason i'm sure IOC has some back up plans. i can see berlin paris london moscow tockyo toronto etc and half of USA cities can host decent games in month in already buildt facilities. maybe not great games and with the stadiums being far from each other but decent anyway. if that happen i don't see the IOC to give esaily another shot at china and definitely not doing a los angeles 1984 sort of bid to them but i'm sure there won't be any problem with china.They wanted that so badly to lost control about it.

Wembley will host for sure champions league final (and maybe world cup) in the future but not 2008. Most likely 2009 or 2010 because i can 't see it winning anything before it is finsihed. Munich will win 2008 with their new arena IMO. the UEFA never give finals to stadium that aren t finish. With olympics and world cup the stadium has 6 years to be finish but a UEFA final it s in two years,if the construction takes more time (and it always do)or any accident occure UEFA will be in trouble so they always choose finshed stadium .

england and france have bid for a lot of same event france gets soccer world cup in 98 and rugby world for 2007 and i hope WOG in 2012 but i can predict you than a island in europe will organize in the next two orv three decades this 3 sports events (no it s not iceland,malta,cyprus or even iceland ) i don 't need to be clairvoyant or nostradamus to predict this,just a guy who thinks a country like uk deserve to host this events and with the experience from 2006 & 2007(&2012 bid :laughlong: ?)will bid with sucess