"Perception of pollution"

So four members of the US Olympic cycling team arrived in China, wearing face masks issued by the US Olympic Committee to protect against the city's oppressive pollution. Given their dependence on healthy lungs, it seems only logical they would protect themselves.

But it offended the Chinese. And the USOC leapt into full damage control mode, doing the Chinese's dirty propaganda work for them.

The USOC was sorry -- so very sorry -- that its band of cyclists embarrassed China by arriving at the Beijing airport wearing black pollution masks that made them look like stage-coach robbers.

"It wasn't the best judgment," said Jim Scherr, CEO of the USOC. "The athletes understand that now."

You can understand the athletes' confusion, though. The USOC did design the filter masks, distribute 200 of them to athletes and, by simple math, surely knew a few of them might wear them. Just not at the airport, in front of cameras.

The USOC made sure the cyclists understood this breach of guest etiquette by scolding them to tears, eliciting an official apology from Michael Friedman, Sarah Hammer, Bobby Lea and Jennie Reed: "Following our arrival on Tuesday, we offer our sincere apologies to BOCOG, the city of Beijing, and the people of China if our actions were in any way offensive. That was not our intent. ... We deeply regret the nature of our choices. Our decision was not intended to insult BOCOG or countless others who have put forth a tremendous amount of effort to improve the air quality in Beijing."

Beijing is a horrifically polluted city. Anyone with eyes (and a camera, as the picture on the right shows) can see that. Or satellite imagery.

As it gears up to host the 2008 Olympic Games Beijing has been awarded an unwelcome new accolade: the air pollution capital of the world.

Satellite data has revealed that the city is one of the worst environmental victims of China's spectacular economic growth, which has brought with it air pollution levels that are blamed for more than 400,000 premature deaths a year.

According to the European Space Agency, Beijing and its neighbouring north-east Chinese provinces have the planet's worst levels of nitrogen dioxide, which can cause fatal damage to the lungs.

For athletes that depend on a healthy respiratory system to be at their peak best, protecting their lungs from toxins that can "cause fatal damage to the lungs" would seem kind of important. Especially since in the course of training and competition, they'll be breathing more of it than the average mortal.

Still, Alfred Munzer, MD, director of pulmonary medicine at Washington Adventist Hospital and former president of the American Lung Association, says that shutting down factories and enforcing driving bans won't eliminate what's already in the air.

"During exercise, the movement of air in the lungs goes up about tenfold, which means exposure to air pollution goes up tenfold," Munzer says. "This has a severe affect on the respiratory tract. It will have an effect on healthy athletes."

But in the Orwellian world of Communist China, it leads to crazy passages as this one from the AFP report on the controversy:

The perception that Beijing's pollution, which prompted a shutdown of factories and reduction in auto travel during the Olympics, was so harmful that Olympians needed masks on arrival was seen as a slap in the face to organizers.

The "perception"? PERCEPTION?

Chris over at the cycling blog Podium Cafe vents:

Granted, if Mike Friedman, Bobby Lea, Sarah Hammer and Jennie Reed put the masks on for the cameras and made stump speeches about the environment, that'd be one thing. Instead, they were among the 200 athletes given the masks by the USOC. And if the Beijing hosts are touchy about pollution, they're in for a stiff dose of culture shock, in the form of media coverage that -- while far, far from perfect -- isn't going to swallow the up-is-down, day-is-night style of reporting the Chinese government typically demands. Seriously, "perception of pollution problems"... is this an Onion piece?

The Chinese have promised to give the international media free access to their country for the duration of the Olympics. If they're freaking out over this incident, it's going to be a long few weeks for them.