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Award-winning columnist Tom Archdeacon — an old-school storyteller in a brand-new venue — writes about sports, the city, southwest Ohio and anything else that catches his fancy… or yours.Home > Blogs > Through the Arch > Archives > 2008 > August > 06 > Entry
Blog: Four U.S. Athletes in a Flap
BEIJING — Well, we’ve got our first flap involving American athletes here.
Four U.S. track cyclists — Sarah Hammer, Jennie Reed, Bobby Lea and Mike Friedman — got off their flight at the Beijing airport wearing pollution masks and walked straight into controversy.
Photographers and TV crews filmed the quartet as they made their way through the new terminal and instantly those images were all over the internet and soon on TV.
Some people here took that as a slap at the host country. U.S.O.C. officials seemed to agree, so Wednesday the four sent a formal apology to Chinese Olympic organizers, though they claimed their actions were done for health concerns and “(were) in no way meant to serve as an environmental or political statement” and were not meant to insult their Chinese hosts.
“We deeply regret the nature of our choices,” the statement said.
There are reports that two of the cyclists even wore their masks in the plane on the flight over to China. I’m wondering if they were concerned about the air there, too, or were they looking for some attention or was this simply a matter of being obtuse?
The masks — issued by the USOC — were given to about one-third of the 596 American athletes who will compete here. But they weren’t necessarily meant to be worn the second the athletes set foot on Chinese soil.
“It wasn’t the best judgment at the time, and the athletes understand that now,” said USOC chief executive Jim Scherr. “We believe that this will be, hopefully, the last incident of this kind. We’re making sure the athletes understand how their actions are perceived by the host country.”
For years here, Chinese people here have worn masks to protect their lungs from the dust and pollution.
But, right or wrong, there’s a different standard for foreign athletes at the Games. Outsiders wearing masks when their actions will be viewed world-wide is interpreted as a loss of face by many locals.
“When you’re walking around with a mask on, you’re basically saying, ‘You guys stink,’ ” Scott Schnitzspahn, performance director of the U.S. triathlon team, told the Wall Street Journal.
That said, several U.S. teams are staying out of Beijing until the last minute, in part because of concerns about the air quality, which, as has been well documented, on bad days here is some of the worst in the world.
The canoe and kayak teams are still training in Komatsu, Japan. The track team is in Dalian on the Chinese coast, and the swimmers — who begin their competitions Saturday — just got here from Singapore.
Wednesday at a press conference, Dara Torres and Michael Phelps — the headliners on the U.S. swim team — praised the Olympic effort by their hosts and Phelps insisted he has no concerns about the air here and had had none in his other competitive visits here in the past.
Still it will be interesting to see how many athletes march in the opening ceremony Friday night — a commitment that means standing outside for several hours straight. More interestingly, will any wears masks in front of the TV cameras that will beam their images to billions of people around the globe?
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